Internet of Things Networks and Their Security

This article is based on a guest lecture delivered at the Technical University of Denmark.

I’m an IoT researcher with more than 10 years of experience in low-power wireless networks and embedded systems. In the early days, often our main goal was to make things work at all. Security was an afterthought; besides the fact that many of the first uses of IoT were in “toy” applications, few people were even aware of the existence of these low-power wireless sensor networks, and fewer still had the means to attack them. Now, IoT becomes more and more widely used, and we start to make important decisions based on data coming from these low-cost low-power devices, IoT security must become now a sharp point of focus. Otherwise, our field risks to obtain and keep a troubled and untrustworthy reputation.

The problem is hard as IoT networks are vulnerable to all of the usual security threats affecting other, more traditional computer networks. On top of that, they are more severely vulnerable or additionally vulnerable to specific attacks, such as sniffing and jamming.

What is an IoT network?

“Internet of Things” has many definitions. Here are some of my favorite:

• “A network of Internet connected objects able to collect and exchange data.” (source)