IoT or Internet of things, is doing wonders and making life more convenient. It can control aviation, airplane engines, transportation, water distribution, increase Security, and environment control. According to the statistics, there will be at least 21 billion connected devices by 2020 and currently, IoT has over 7.5 billion investment with chances to get more with time. Moreover, it increases the efficiency and connect devices like smoke detector, bells etc.

Hence, the future seems more connected than ever with possibility that our home’s windows will be connected, sharing information of weather and managing energy system efficient.

It is making the system friendlier and smarter but at the same time it’s a threat for all the connected devices and creates new problems for the businesses and network security. Now security is the top

challenge for the IoT developers as the devices are more connected in complex and unmanageable environment. Even our smartphones might get affected. There are few challenges that internet of things

(IoT) is facing currently. Let’s see what those are.

Everything is vulnerable:

All the sensors/camera or devices represent a potential risk. Researcher of French Institute; Eurecom, downloaded 32000 images from IoT manufacturers and found out potential threats in the form of poor encryption which leads the access to unauthorized data. In network security, any weak link could lead access to thousands of serious threats which can destroy the whole system.

Integrity:

Systems can’t decide if the data is intervened or not as there are multiple sensors attached in which they direct all sorts of data. There are devices which can be hacked to provide false data. In short, IoT security doesn’t exist in many of the devices and eventually they get connected by hackers. Hence, there must be certain measures to stop these uncertainties.

Secure devices:

IoT devices have limited storage, memory and limited batteries. The security methods which rely on encryption are misfit on devices, mainly because of the complexity of encryption and decryption. IoT system must protect devices using firewalls to cover their limitations.

IoT updates:

IoT faces another big challenge as IoT devices don’t have the ability to get update automatically. For example, you bought an IoT device and it’s working flawlessly, without any security issues. But after few days, the device face network issues through updates and security patches. Also, keep in mind that the device isn’t outdated, it only requires to get updated.

Securing communications:

Securing communications is one of the major challenges because when more devices are connected to network, there is higher probability of network penetrating. The network should be secured by identification of each device and having its own signature so that only known devices can get connected and unknown devices will get blocked and update the system about the threat it receives.

Ensure high availability:

As IoT comes more into our lives, its availability should get higher and convenient so it can control the loss of revenue and data. For example, when IoT controls traffic, air jets, healthcare, devices must be available all the time in order to become risk free. Devices need to be protected and designed in such a way that it can eliminate the threat easily and recover quickly whenever the problem arises.

For now IoT customers should remain careful with the devices because hackers can get access to these devices easily and it’s better to prevent than to cure. Businesses and individuals need to start identifying risk and take certain measures of privacy and security. Trust is the foundation of every business and hence IoT devices must also be trusted by their users.