Recent Security Approaches for IoT Devices

Moore’s Law is Intel Corporation co-founder Gordon Moore’s observation, stating that the capabilities and power of computers would go up at an exponential rate every few years. In addition to the considerable work put in by scientists and computer engineers, Moore’s Law has driven the fast development of technology.

A tenet of this law is this: development is exponential. One of the most popular technologies, which is expected to grow exponentially, is the Internet of Things. Also known as IoT, this refers to a system in which internet-connected devices send and receive data in real time. Many physical objects can be equipped with IoT capabilities and be used as part of an interconnected system to carry out what would otherwise be tasks requiring a lot of labor.

IoT devices work automatically, so they brought in numerous facilities that benefit businesses in a wide range of sectors. IoT devices transmit a large number of data points per minute, so both security and privacy are reasons to worry. As a result, safeguarding these devices against cyberattacks is important.

With security weaknesses turning into a big concern, cyber attackers make progress towards finding opportunities to target the Internet of Things devices and take advantage of data. IoT is developing quickly, so time is important to tackle these vulnerabilities with the following strategies. The effective implementation of these will enable people to use devices without having to worry about the data in them being compromised.

Make the Devices’ Access Logs Centralized and Secured

Among the most fundamental security problems in the Internet of Things is the situation where the devices connect to the internet network in an unauthorized way. The IT department of the network’s organization does not get to know the occurrence of that. Information technology managers understand which device is connected to the computer and the information concerning who has signed in. This process is yet to be expanded to tackle the sheer number of these hardware pieces going online. This makes it possible for cybercriminals to access exposed devices and then initiate an attack against the target system.

To tackle security vulnerabilities, there is a pressing need to centralize the access logs, assign the task of recognizing a cyberattack, and alerting patterns on the endpoint devices to trained security personnel. There is going to be more distributed denial of service attacks, so endpoint security systems with the capability to discover DDoS have to be in place.

Secure Communications with Encryption

The methods of encryption on these devices are fragile even today, and fall short in security. The number of devices using secure communications during the first-time configuration is small. The majority of these devices make use of standard internet protocols for communications over the internet in basic text form. This makes life easier for those who hack and observe network traffic in order to identify vulnerabilities.

The traffic should be using secure protocols such as HTTPS, SFTP (Secure file transfer Protocol), TLS (transport layer security), among others, for communications over the web. For devices connecting to other remote data communication devices or mobile applications, secure protocols have to be established.

Put More Secure and Effective Password Policies in Place

Home routers, sensors, network printers and many other devices lack authentication protocols and access protocols that are secure. It is unfortunate that using two-factor authentication in the Internet of Things devices isn’t given much thought and with some devices not needing any kind of verification whatsoever.

Alter existing and/or default passwords to those that are not easy to crack for hackers. Usually, complicated passwords are made up of numbers, lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and where possible, even symbols. Single sign on software can be used to both control and manage access. The end-user has to be informed about the most effective ways to use home routers and modems, especially when moving their devices from their office networks to the one at home and the other way around.

Execute Restrictive Network Communication Policies and Establish VLANs

Restrictive network communications have to be carried out to ensure that devices are protected against attacks and that these are invulnerable to cyberattacks to an extent. More careful app or user verification and default network firewall’s rules have to be implemented. IoT devices must not be accessible via regular TCP/IP ports, plus you being the user should never be taken for granted that enterprise network firewalls can keep you from communicating either over the network or beyond the internet.

Better security can be provided by isolating both permissive devices and sensors by means of a separate virtual local area network. This is going to stop hackers from looking for a weakened sensor when monitoring network traffic and using it to initiate a cyberattack across the entire business.