Securing the Internet of Things

In the Internet of Things vision, every physical object has a virtual component that can produce and consume services. Such extreme interconnection will bring unprecedented convenience and economy, but it will also require novel approaches to ensure its safe and ethical use. In the Internet of Things (IoT), everything real becomes virtual, which means that each person and thing has a locatable, addressable, and readable counterpart on the Internet. These virtual entities can produce and consume services and collaborate toward a common goal. The user’s phone knows about his physical and mental state through a network of devices that surround his body, so it can act on his behalf. The embedded system in a swimming pool can share its state with other virtual entities. With these characteristics, the IoT promises to extend “anywhere, anyhow, anytime ” computing to “anything, anyone, any service.” Several significant obstacles remain to fulfill the IoT vision, among them security. The Internet and its users are already under continual attack, and a growing economy—replete with business models that undermine the Internet’s ethical use—is fully focused on exploiting the current version’s foundational weaknesses. This does not bode well for the IoT, which incorporates many constrained devices. Indeed