Research Project Internet of Things Assignment Sample

Research Project Assignment Sample

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Internet of Things

Section 1: Introduction

The rise of technology within the business environment is increasing day by day and is becoming highly important due to which it has caused a large amount of dilemma to be raised on how to connect all of such technologies. This is where the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) comes into play as it helps to connect such devices without there being too much human interference involved. According to Ianioglo and Polajeva, (2017) security has been defined to be a concept that allows a service to be free from any threat or risks. The main issue that is present is of seeing how security is to be maintained while using IoT. There are main security threats like incorrect access control, lack of privacy protection, the encryption is not up to the part and even outdated software. These are just a few of the security problems that are present within IoT.

Problem Description/Justification

This research will help to outline what are the different security problems that are being faced within IoT are developing because new technology within the market is also being presented. This report will highlight all of these issues to highlight the new problems and show how they are affecting the work being done by IoT. This is important to understand as interconnectedness within new technologies is increasing day by day due to which the use of IoT is also becoming highly popular (Maram et al., 2019). This report will carry out full research to highlight the various challenges to make sure that IoT can run successfully. It should be pointed out that the solutions that have been developed to manage such problems would also be analysed to show measure their proficiency.

The report would help both people and organisations be aware of the various threats that can be faced by IoT and what are various solutions are being developed that would help to manage them. It should be understood that people oftentimes do not have too much knowledge regarding such a technology (Banerjee et al., 2018).

Section 2: Literature review

Rao and Haq, (2018) have described that IoT has four layers of architecture that are present within IoT. Some different challenges and issues were present within these layers. A few of these challenges that have been pointed out are hardware jamming, gateway attacks, DoS attack, application security, the threat to shared resources etc. it seems that all o these issues have bought attention to the fact that the four layers that are present within the IoT would need to be managed separately to adequately make sure that such issues do not occur again. The security threats that have been seen for IoT mainly involve that data is being stolen. This is personal data that can be stolen as each of the devices that are present with an individual are interlinked hence causing various amounts of private data to be affected. The issues that are mentioned as attacks within the paper seem to be the ones that are situated within the network layer which helps to connect all of the devices. Attacks upon such an area are considered to be the most problematic. One of the solutions that have been identified is that the use of cryptographic hash functions and higher encryption passwords would make it difficult for various attacks to occur within the network area. Another key finding from the paper is that the physical design of end devices should be secured which can be done by having a high quality of resources.

According toDuc et al. (2017), different issues have been identified within the paper but it has been limited to two industries which are the sporting industry and the other is from the aquaculture industry. It seems that the issues present within this paper seem to differ from the ones presented by Rao and Haq as more of a general approach has been adopted. From the research paper, it seems that technical and organisational issues were the most prevalent within the two industries that have been presented. After conducting a thorough analysis, it was found out some issues like threats to privilege and access, not having proper security controls and even having different application domains have come out to be the key security issues that have been defined. There has only been a single solution that has been provided to manage them which is domain-specific approaches are to be developed. This approach takes into account that since industries are developing then the security measures that are taken up for IoT should also be developed accordingly.

On the other hand, it seems that authors Tawalbeh et al. (2020) have developed a new model to deal with the security issues that are occurring within IoT. The main security issue that has been identified s that the sensors which are present might be oftentimes linked to unknown devices which can cause sharing of information to occur without there being proper consent. This specific article was chosen to analyse the specific outline of what could be an effective solution. Amazon Web Service (AWS) as Virtual Machines have been added within the model from which the sensors would be able to clear out whether the connected device or technology is indeed helpful or not. An e-cloud enabled IoT environment would provide security protocols so that the vulnerability that is present within IoT would help to be developed.

Authors Sha et al. (2018) have agreed with Rao and Haq, (2018) as they have also shown that the architecture of IoT has different security issues that can occur. It seems that the security issues are similar to the other authors but a new issue has arisen like heterogeneous devices and communicationswhich shows that privacy is being targeted. The level of privacy is not effective within all of the levels of IoT because aggregate data cannot have too much of an optimal balance to be achieved. The level of security configuration that is put into IoT seems to be low within the various organisation due to which it causes there to be a leak of data or even hacking of data to be done. The issue of privacy mostly arises within communication as it contains confidential data. From the article, it was also found out that security cameras were the most hacked devices that were present and this was because the level of safety was not adequate.

According to Putra et al. (2020), a clear major security problem that is present in IoT is that of incorrect access control. This article goes on to describe that a local network cannot be trusted because it is through the internet that anyone smart enough can be able to hack into the server. This can be where one’s personal information is stored hence causing a large amount of discomfort to be seen. This is because there is a single level of protection that is present in most IoT devices. This level of protection has one or two defined passwords that are often time used which makes its venerability very high. People do not understand or even have sufficient knowledge about the dangers that they might be in if they do not properly know how to operate within such an environment.

Authors Atlam and Wills, (2020) have differentiated the different security issues in two different areas being physical attacks and software attacks. This article helps to provide an in-depth analysis of the different issues and is different compared to the other literature reviews as the concept of physical attacks is done in IoT. One of the physical attacks that have been mentioned is node tampering that is done within IoT. This is a security threat as replacement of the sensors can be done physically due to which venerable data can be attained. Another key security measure that was discovered from this article is that the use of radiofrequency interference is used to drop the quality of the communication that is being done. By doing this, hackers often time take advantage of this by weakening the nodes and hacking into personal data.

Various security attacks in the IoT system

(Source: Atlam and Wills, 2020)

From analysing the article, it was further found out that all of these security attacks cause doubt to be raised within security, hence increasing the threat to privacy that is present. This is a huge aspect to consider as it involves both ethical and social complications that arise with it. Authors Scheibner et al. (2020), have agreed upon such a point as they have described that if data privacy is not protected that it can cause major trust issues to arise. The author has stated that before using IoT in any part of an organisation or a project or anywhere else, it should be properly tested and all of the security dimensions should be explored. This is because protecting all private information is necessary or else data can be used against an individual hence causing unethical practices to occur. There is also the concept explained within the paper that organisations should understand that maintaining the privacy of their workforce is necessary so before using IoT in various areas of the organisation it should be noted that proper security is established.

From this, it can be understood that authorisation and access control is a huge factor that should be considered while using IoT. This is because it will allow access to information through encrypted means and also only to a few personnel. By doing this there would be better control of the information that is provided during IoT. According to Atlam et al. (2018), access control does not mean that an individual has control over all of the aspects but also to the machines that are involved that function on their own. It is through this that many policies are created to have an adequate amount of control over the various devices that are present within the workplace.

Section 3: Future Trends

For the upcoming 2-3 years these are the trends within IoT that will likely rise.

Smart City: this concept of smart cities has been within the business environment for quite some time and it seems that some countries have adopted IoT to manage to create them. All of the devices that are present within the city would be managed through IoT. This has been done within countries like Japan where there are not any cashiers present in shops and self-check-out is done by using IoT. All of the devices present within the supermarket are connected hence providing a new revolution. This would be adopted by various areas as even Barclays Investment Bank has stated that they are more likely to invest in such an area (Barclays, 2020).

Further use of IoT in all industries: it seems that having connected devices present allows there to be faster information shared. This is important in all organisations because proper and adequate sharing of information is necessary to achieve a competitive edge within the market. This was been further supported by Microsoft, as the organisation has seen how much dependent the business environment has become on technology (Event, 2021).

For the upcoming 10- 15 years there are slightly different trends that would be targeted

Collaboration with new technology: It seems that within the market there are new technologies that are being developed. These new technologies oftentimes are to be linked and implemented within an operational process for which IoT is needed so that it can help to connect with other devices. Also, technology like artificial intelligence (AI) has not been fully explored due to which the addition of IoT within it would not be fully functional. There are several issues that this can cause as people are still not able to trust AI technology (Georgiev, 2021).

5G technology: within the world, it seems some places have still not adopted 5G technology and this is one of the key factors that help to fuel IoT. This is necessary to be understood as having a faster network would help there to be less sophisticated areas that would have to be dealt with. Demand for new products and innovative products that have both IoT and 5G technology would be running together.

Rise of new technology: it seems that the rise of new technologies is going to only grow within the market. It is through such technology that IoT would not be collaborating well as there is not a clearly defined approach that can be used to manage the risks or issues that are faced in its security concept. It was seen within the literature review that there were different options presented on how to handle security issues but none of them seemed to be within the same area. Hence, when new technology is developed like a better use of virtual reality, then it would cause there to be rising in new security issues regarding IoT. Another aspect is that the new technology being developed has to be compatible with IoT (Bang and Rao, 2021). This is necessary as if IoT would not be able to connect with the technology successfully then there would have a lot of loopholes that hackers would use to access personal data.

Number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices worldwide from 2019 to 2030

(Source: Holst, 2021)

The above graph has represented that there will be a rise within the IoT devices which comprehends the fact that the dependability would also increase. It needs to be understood that the usage of IoT within industries is to triple in an amount within the forthcoming years.

Section 4: Social and Ethical Issues

Social issues

One of the major issues is that who owns what data when IoT is being collaborated with other technologies such as AI. This is a major issue as the level of control that is present with others is not clear who has control over all of the information. This is an area that is still under development as if the access of information is more than with one party then this can lead to a disruption to occur. There should be laws that would be developed to make sure that proper management of such information can be done (Malekshahi et al., 2020). The European Union had developed guidelines to make sure that information is not leaked.

Another social issue is that every single account that is created online is linked to each other and other platforms as well. All of the information would be linked to each other. This creates a level of distrust to happen as each of the platforms are interlinked and if one is hacked all of the others would be easily accessed (Varadi et al., 2020).

Ethical Issue

There is a clear ethical issue that is involved within IoT and that of privacy. It seems that the level of privacy that is present within t IoT is high as several areas have to be looked at to manage the amount of work that is being done. It seems that when employees that log in to an office network using their system are highly probable to be a security risk (Wang et al., 2018). This is because mostly all of their information has been shared and can be accessed by the office.

Informed consent is yet another ethical issue that is prevalent within IoT. This is because many times new applications or other devices do not ask for informed consent from an individual due to which all of their information is being accessed by the operator of the application. This is why proper application places like google play and apple store ask permission from the owner before installing or accessing information. This is what should be understood by individuals as to save money, various games or applications are downloaded illegally due to which their private data can be easily accessed (Tanczer et al., 2017). From this, it can be understood that having consent taking from various employees and other individuals is of utmost importance.

Section 5: Conclusion

IoT is on the rise and it seems that having a clear comprehension of the various security issues that can occur within it so that various strategies can be bought up to deal with them. Within the upcoming future, it seems that the use of IoT will only increase and having a proper understanding of it will help to maximise the operational process.IoT encourages higher performance and collaboration to be established between employees and customers as it increases the level of relationship between them. It also enables that the devices that are present can be linked together so that there can be faster services to be provided hence creating an outline of how to run the operations within the workplace or even at home. From this, it can be understood that IoT is present everywhere and one needs to have proper knowledge of the concept of IoT.

It should be understood that if there is a rise in IoT enables security measures then the cyber-attacks taking place would also be innovative due to innovative technology being introduced within the market. So, in conclusion, it can be said that security in IoT is a continuous process and needs to be monitored constantly.

References

Atlam, H.F. and Wills, G.B., 2020. IoT security, privacy, safety and ethics. In Digital twin technologies and smart cities (pp. 123-149). Springer, Cham.

Atlam, H.F., Alenezi, A., Hussein, R.K. and Wills, G.B., 2018. Validation of an Adaptive Risk-based Access Control Model for the Internet of Things. International Journal of Computer Network & Information Security, 10(1).

Banerjee, U., Juvekar, C., Wright, A. and Chandrakasan, A.P., 2018. An energy-efficient reconfigurable DTLS cryptographic engine for End-to-End security in IoT applications. In 2018 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference-(ISSCC) (pp. 42-44). IEEE.

Bang, A.O. and Rao, U.P., 2021. Context-Aware Computing for IoT: History, Applications and Research Challenges. In Proceedings of Second International Conference on Smart Energy and Communication (pp. 719-726). Springer, Singapore.

Barclays, 2020. The future of Smart Cities. (Online) Investment Bank Barclays. Available at: https://www.investmentbank.barclays.com/our-insights/Rethinking-smart-cities-prioritising-infrastructure.html [Accessed on: 2 August 2021]

Duc, A.N., Jabangwe, R., Paul, P. and Abrahamsson, P., 2017, May. Security challenges in IoT development: a software engineering perspective. In Proceedings of the XP2017 Scientific Workshops (pp. 1-5).

The event, 2021. Future of Windows IoT. (Online) Event on24. Available at: https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&partnerref=TOL&eventid=3028431&sessionid=1&key=41167C554689C2602EA096AAD6DD82CC&regTag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register#:~:text=The%20next%20release%20of%20the,(OTA)%2C%20and%20more. [Accessed on: 2 August 2021]

Georgiev, D. 2021. Internet of Things Statistics, Facts & Predictions. (Online) Reveiw42. Available at: https://review42.com/resources/internet-of-things-stats/ [Accessed on: 2 August 2021]

Holst, A. 2021. Number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices worldwide from 2019 to 2030. (Online) Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1183457/iot-connected-devices-worldwide/ [Accessed on: 2 August 2021]

Ianioglo, A. and Polajeva, T., 2017. Origin and definition of the category of economic security of enterprise. In 9th International Scientific Conference “Business and Management 2016”.

Malekshahi R. M., Rahmani, A.M., Sahafi, A. 2020. Social Internet of Things: vision, challenges, and trends. Hum. Cent. Comput. Inf. Sci. 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13673-020-00254-6

Maram, B., Gnanasekar, J.M., Manogaran, G. and Balaanand, M., 2019. Intelligent security algorithm for UNICODE data privacy and security in IOT. Service Oriented Computing and Applications, 13(1), pp.3-15.

Putra, G.D., Dedeoglu, V., Kanhere, S.S. and Jurdak, R., 2020. Trust management in decentralized iot access control system. In 2020 IEEE international conference on blockchain and cryptocurrency (ICBC) (pp. 1-9). IEEE.

Rao, T.A. and Haq, E.U., 2018. Security challenges facing IoT layers and its protective measures. International Journal of Computer Applications, 179(27), pp.31-35.

Scheibner, J., Jobin, A. and Vayena, E., 2020. Ethical Issues with Using Internet of Things Devices in Citizen Science Research: A Scoping Review. Cambridge Handbook of Life Science, Information Technology and Human Rights.

Sha, K., Wei, W., Yang, T.A., Wang, Z. and Shi, W., 2018. On security challenges and open issues in Internet of Things. Future Generation Computer Systems, 83, pp.326-337.

Tanczer, L., Carr, M., Brass, I., Steenmans, I. and Blackstock, J.J., 2017. IoT and Its Implications for Informed Consent. PETRAS IoT Hub, STEaPP: London.

Tawalbeh, L.A., Muheidat, F., Tawalbeh, M. and Quwaider, M., 2020. IoT Privacy and security: Challenges and solutions. Applied Sciences, 10(12), p.4102.

Varadi, S., Varkonyi, G.G. and Kertész, A., 2020. Legal issues of social iot services: The effects of using clouds, fogs and ai. In Toward Social Internet of Things (SIoT): Enabling Technologies, Architectures and Applications (pp. 123-138). Springer, Cham.

Wang, H., Zhang, Z. and Taleb, T., 2018. Special issue on security and privacy of IoT. World Wide Web, 21(1), pp.1-6.

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