Lagging Areas

Challenges of security in the age of IoT

“With digitisation comes many possible security threats. Cyber Security comes as part of the system design and today threats have emerged possibly due to gaps in infrastructure or the system, which needs to be addressed. It is therefore imperative to incorporate it in the system design stage itself.”

—Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary, Department of IT, BT and S&T, Government of

Karnataka “In the context of all-pervasive digitisation, rich content delivery, rapid innovation, high speed transactions and every user enterprise turning digital, it becomes imperative for Security to catch up.” —Rama Vedashree,

CEO, DSCI

Hardware Security

With the coming of the IoT devices, the concept of security is also undergoing change. While a lot of effort is being used on evolving security software solutions, for many people these security softwares may be expensive and therefore, out of regular reach. In such a scenario, hardware security will be of utmost importance. This gives rise to another problem viz., the skills needed for accessing the security features in x86 in Windows and Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) are very rare. Hence, there is a pertinent need to impart these skills to IT professionals.

Infrastructural security has to do with Networking Functions Virtualisations (NFV), which uses virtual machines ( VMs) to manage several functions in the hardware. In the pre-IoT era, the Internet transmits messages without using them for predictive analysis of any kind. But with the coming IoT, messages will be transmitted with many kinds of analytical interpretations associated with them. This will require end to end security. NFV will have to enable it in gateways, transport networks, clouds and DCs. This is a new technology, so the tools and products that enable this security are only coming up at the moment.

Cloud and Automation

Clouds will become the only platforms to serve the IoT devices. Cloud technology is compliant with virtualisation of networking, but more designed for data management, processing and storage. Automation and a focus on heterogenous operating systems will require a security system to serve their unique needs. IoT risk managers have too be trained in this system.

As more and more IT work will be done by softwares, they will have to be imparted with security standards that reduce the vulnerability level. The IoT products are released to the market on a fast track for commercial reasons without developing proper security systems around them. This will need to be addressed by the developers.

As the society moves towards IoT wold, it is imperative to address these challenges quickly.