Internet of Things (IoT) Security: Status, Challenges and Countermeasures

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a vast concept spreading rapidly throughout the world today. Due to their inherent nature, IoT devices are more vulnerable to attacks than other cyber infrastructure. In a typical IoT system, four different types of layers can be identified. Those layers can be specified as the application layer, data processing (software) layer, network layer, and sensing (physical) layer. According to this architecture, each layer operates under different technologies. Thus, various challenges and vulnerabilities related to security have emerged and exist. Thereby extant and forthcoming IoT applications must comply with standard cyber security guides and regulations to guarantee safety; otherwise, they would jeopardize the lives of people using these IoT applications resulting in chaos. To achieve this, IoT applications can create environments with end-to-end security by adding security measures and the required adjustment, guaranteeing safety and privacy. By bearing this in mind, this research reviews the different types of security challenges, such as access control attacks and physical security attacks found in each of the four layers of the IoT architecture, along with what countermeasures can be taken to mitigate these attacks. As the main objective of this research is to examine underlying security challenges in the standard IoT architecture, we examine and categorize IoT vulnerabilities and outline methods used to ensure such IoT systems safety. Further, we also present the future directions in terms of security and privacy of IoT as well.