Technological advancements are progressing rapidly, and in this context, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology plays a crucial role in transforming traditional homes and industries into smart homes and smart industries. The advancement of the IoT has made human life easier by integrating itself into everyday life. But the ever-growing reliance on IoT technology has also introduced a set of security challenges.
The IoT devices come with weak configurations, design flaws, and poor update mechanisms that make IoT devices a favourite target of attackers. Securing IoT technology and preventing breaches of IoT devices is crucial for IoT vendors. To secure the IoT devices, the organisations and IoT vendors must focus on IoT device security and implement protective measures and guidelines to protect sensitive data, ensure system reliability, and maintain trust in connected ecosystems.
What are IoT vulnerabilities?
IoT vulnerabilities refer to the design errors in hardware, firmware, or network infrastructure, which can be exploited by attackers to launch a large-scale attack. As IoT devices are developed for cost-effective performance with a low level of security, this makes it easier for attackers to exploit the devices. The IoT devices generally lack the security that makes them easy to compromise.
The attackers generally look for the loopholes that are caused due to technical errors, human errors, or misconfiguration of the IoT devices. Once the loopholes are detected, the attackers exploit them to get unauthorised access to the system and steal the user's data.
Common IoT Vulnerabilities
As the IoT devices are manufactured and shipped with a low level of security, it can be assumed that the IoT device ships with built-in vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers to get unauthorised access to the system. Some common IoT vulnerabilities are:
1. Default and weak credentials
The main factors for IoT devices getting compromised are the default and weak credentials. As every IoT device ships with weak factory default credentials like "admin". The weak credentials contribute the most towards IoT device compromise, as the attackers use automated tools to scan and perform brute-force attacks to get access to the system.
2. Lack of firmware updates
As the IoT devices are designed for cost-effective performance and produced in large so, the IoT device security is generally overlooked. Apart from that, the manufacturers of the IoT devices often fail to provide timely firmware updates, which allows bugs and vulnerabilities to stay in place, allowing attackers to exploit these vulnerabilities to gain access to the system.
3. Insecure Communication Channels
Some IoT devices transmit data without any encryption or use weak cryptographic protocols to encrypt the data, which makes the data easy to decrypt by attackers. Attackers use specially designed tools to intercept the data, which contributes heavily towards a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack.
4. Exposed Services
IoT devices often expose the services that are accessible to anyone on the internet, which creates a gateway for unauthorised access. IoT devices also expose services such as Telnet, FTP, and other services that contain vulnerabilities, which allow attackers to exploit these vulnerabilities to gain access to the device.
How to prevent IoT devices from getting hacked
The IoT device security is an important factor in preventing IoT devices from getting hacked, and securing them requires an approach that combines the hardware design and encrypted communication protocols. Some of the measures to prevent IoT devices from getting hacked are:
- Changing Default Passwords: Users must change the default passwords. A secure password must be used that meets the security requirements and must be changed regularly. The password must be a combination of letters (a-z), numbers(0–9), and special characters(@, #, etc). Using a password combination ensures greater security and makes the password difficult to crack.
- Keeping the firmware updated: Keeping an outdated firmware aids the attackers, as the outdated firmware contains bugs and vulnerabilities that are exploited by the attackers to get their way in. Regularly updating the firmware is mandatory for such reasons as it helps in fixing the known bugs and vulnerabilities.
- Implementing strong authentication: As the security system in the IoT devices is already flawed and contains vulnerabilities since the manufacturing stage, it helps attackers to successfully compromise a device. In such a scenario, implementing strong authentication and access control along with API keys or multi-factor authentication helps in securing the IoT devices.
Conclusion
The IoT device security is not an option for any organisation; it is a mandatory step that every organisation and vendor must take. Securing an IoT device not only contributes to protecting the digital infrastructure but also helps in protecting the privacy and dignity of human life. As IoT devices have become deeply integrated into daily human life, ensuring a secure IoT device is mandatory to gain the customers' trust.