What is the Internet of Things (IoT) in this 2022 Era?

Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT and cloud
IoT security risks and countermeasures
Summary

Internet of Things (IoT)

What is the Internet of Things

IoT (Internet of Things) is a technology that provides unprecedented new value and services by connecting a wide variety of physical devices to the Internet. Even before IoT, a technology called M2M (Machine to Machine) that communicates between devices within a closed network was widespread. IoT, on the other hand, connects all kinds of things such as industrial equipment, houses, automobiles, home appliances, and consumer goods to the Internet. It made it possible to provide services in a format.

Main use cases of IoT

By connecting things that were not previously digital devices to the Internet, we will be able to do three things. They are the “operation of things”, “data collection by things”, and “communication between things” through the Internet.

Manipulation of things

By utilizing IoT technology, we can operate everything from lighting equipment and home appliances in the home to operating medical equipment and industrial drones from anywhere as long as things are connected to the Internet. These operations are mainly performed through dedicated applications that run on PCs and smartphones. On the other hand, due to the time lag caused by communication and problems with the control performance of the device itself, there are still issues in the operation of delicate operations and operations that handle large amounts of data.

Data collection by things

IoT often comes with sensors. Images and videos for camera-type devices, environmental information (temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, illuminance) for factories, weight, shock, vibration for motion sensors, and location information for GPS-equipped devices. Various information of things can be collected, processed, analyzed, and visualized through the Internet. The amount of information that IoT detects is extremely large, and if it is converted into data and sent to the cloud, it may not be possible to process it. I have.

Communication between things

As mentioned above, communication between objects was prevalent in the M2M format within a limited network. On the other hand, IoT is expected to perform complex processing because the Internet is mediated in addition to that. Especially in the field of autonomous driving, the possibility of connecting traffic signals and roads to the Internet of Things (IoT) and connecting them to the Internet is being explored to prevent accidents.

IoT and cloud

Collaboration with cloud services is essential for the spread of IoT. The development of cloud services has greatly expanded the range of IoT applications.

Providing an integrated environment

The operation of applications that operate IoT and the processing of acquired data are performed on servers on the cloud. Recently, major cloud vendors have started offering integrated services for IoT solutions, operating IoT services via the cloud, such as OS distribution for IoT devices, secure communication with devices, log acquisition, and data analysis processing. The services that should be done are packaged and ready to use.

The operation of IoT services requires not only software but also an architectural design that considers the communication environment and software operation on the device side. In addition, these services can be linked with DB and server services other than IoT-related services to provide a wider range of IoT solutions.

Stream processing

Many IoT services require real-time performance, such as factory anomaly detection. Stream processing is a technology for continuously processing data to meet these needs. A stream, as the name suggests, represents a continuous flow of data from your device to a server in the cloud.

Generally, many services send and receive data in arbitrary units in consideration of communication costs, so communication between device servers is intermittent. On the other hand, in stream processing, communication between the device and the server is non-intermittent, so data processing can be performed with minimal time lag even in real-time processing. Stream processing is not a technology limited to IoT, but is being used in various areas such as video distribution and advertisement distribution.

IoT security risks and countermeasures

Connecting to www (World Wide Web)

The www (World Wide Web), or connection to the Internet, has made devices accessible from anywhere in the world. On the other hand, it carries many risks. For example, it is quite conceivable that a malicious attacker could take control of an IoT device and abuse it in some way.

Also, due to the nature of the data sent by IoT devices, there are cases were storing it in the cloud should be avoided. In cases where the information itself has great value, such as personal DNA information obtained through medical equipment or environmental information on the factory owned by a specific company, the information should be handled only in a closed environment. In such cases, it is necessary to take measures such as installing an edge server near the IoT device and filtering the data sent to the cloud as much as possible.

Change default password

Passwords can be set for many IoT devices, but there are many cases where the password is not changed when starting to use it, making it vulnerable to attackers.

Abuse of Bluetooth

The main IoT communication standards are HTTP(S) and Bluetooth, and there are many examples of using Bluetooth, especially in short-range communication. However, due to the nature of Bluetooth, anyone within a short distance of the device can recognize its existence and depend on the device, the connection between devices can be established without authentication. As a result, there are cases where problems occur due to data transmission and reception using a Bluetooth connection.

Mesh network

A mesh network is one of the network communication technologies, and its name derives from the state in which multiple devices are connected in a mesh. A mesh network is a technology that provides a stable network environment at all times by searching for communication between other devices in a self-healing manner, even if the connection between specific devices is interrupted during its lifetime. Originally, it consisted of Wi-Fi communication, but in the past few years, the practical use of mesh networks has been progressing even with the Bluetooth standard.

In IoT, not only fixedly installed devices but also portable devices such as smartphones change their location, connect to networks unique to each region, and perform various operations. Therefore, to build a private mesh network, it is necessary to design security on the premise of joining and leaving the network. If the connection to a private network were always permitted without such identification, the risk of confidential information being leaked would suddenly increase in the case of short-range communication such as Bluetooth, just by recognizing the device. increase.

Therefore, in Bluetooth mesh network technology, encrypted communication and the existence of an authentication key assigned to each device participating in the network play an important role as a security measure. This authentication key is updated when a device joins or leaves. Therefore, even if an attacker attempts to access the network using a device that has failed and left the network, the authentication key of the failed device is outdated, so participation in the network will not be accepted. increase.

Summary

IoT technology is already permeating deeply from households to industries. A future in which everything in the world will be connected to the Internet, including smart homes and smart cities, is just around the corner. While these technologies have made people’s lives and work dramatically more convenient, they have also increased security risks such as information leaks and misuse. Amid these changes, we must understand how these technologies are used and what kind of risks they pose, and be conscious that the use of IoT technology as a society as a whole will head in the right direction. We sought.