Most Common Reasons Of IoT Security Threats

In this decade, Internet Of Things(IoT) is growing very rapidly. According to the report, the estimated global IoT spending will be $1.1 trillion(approx). This will make a flood in the use of cutting edge IoT applications and solutions. But with the increase in popularity of IoT devices, there is a rise in IoT app development as well as security challenges and issues. Manufacturers are racing against each other to bring the latest device in the market and most of them are not thinking about security issues associated with IoT devices. If you’re going to develop IoT apps or working on IoT devices, you must know the common IoT security issues. Let’s have a look at the most common IOT security issues.

Reasons Of IoT Security Threats-

Internet Of Things

1. Unsafe Communication-

Most of the Iot devices don’t encrypt the messages when sending them over the network. This is the most common and biggest IoT security challenge. Organizations must ensure that communication between devices and cloud services is secure and encrypted. Best practice to ensure secure communication is to use transport encryption and use standards such as TLS. Isolating devices by using different networks helps to create secure and private communication, that keeps transmitted data secure. 

2. Use Of Default Passwords-

Most of the companies deliver devices with default passwords and don’t even inform customers to change them. And this becomes one of the biggest IoT security threats because hackers can easily track those default common passwords. Weak credentials results in higher possibility of password hacking. Companies those use unsafe credentials on their IoT devices put their customers and their business at risk of being susceptible to direct attacks and being infected through brute force attempt.

3. Botnet Attacks-

Various DDoS attacks using hundreds of thousands of IP cameras, NAS, and home routers were infected and directed to bring down the DNS that provided services to platforms such as Twitter, reddit,Netflix, Github. The issue is that IoT devices are highly vulnerable to Malware attacks. They don’t regularly update the software security and so quickly get infected zombies and used as a medium to send huge amounts of traffic. Also, a botnet can pose security threats for electrical grids, manufacturing plants, transportation systems and water treatment facilities, that can threaten people. 

4. Personal Information Leaks-

Professional cybercriminals can cause massive damage by finding out internet protocol (IP) addresses through unsecured Iot devices. Those addresses tells the location of the user and their residential address. So it is recommended to secure your IoT connection through VPN(Virtual Private Network). Installing VPN on router will encrypt traffic through ISP. VPN can keep your internet protocol address private and secure whole home network.

5. IoT Malware Ransomware-

As the number of IoT devices are increasing continuously, there is also an increase in the number of malware and ransomware used to harm them. While traditional ransomware depends on encryption to lockout users out of various devices and platforms, there’s an ongoing hybridization of both malware and ransomware which aims to aims to merge the different types of attacks.

Ransomware attacks focus on limiting or disabling device to function and steal user data at the same time. For instance, webcam can be locked and footage funneled to an infected web address that could extract sensitive data using wide range of locations such as home, office etc. Increasing number of IoT devices will cause unpredictability in unauthorized access or theft in future.

6. Data Security And Privacy Concerns (Mobile, Web, Cloud)-

Data privacy and security is a largest issue in today’s internet world. HUge amount of data is constantly being transmitted, stored and processed by large companies by the use of wide array of Iot devices like smart TVs, printers etc. Generally, user data is shared between or even sold to various companies, by violating privacy and data security policies.

Secure mobile app development and web-based IoT apps can be tricky for small companies with limited budget. Most of the manufacturers wants to develop and deliver app rapidly in the market to get more funding and increase their user base. 

Except if you need to risk a major breach of security and ruin your brand authority and reliability, then, at that point, you should consider going through a directory of mobile and web development organizations and find the best one that can satisfy all your security necessities with multilayered data management.

7. Automation And A.I-

We all know about AI tools. These AI tools helps manufacturers to carry out various tasks efficiently. But it just only a single mistake in the code or faulty algorithm to bring down an entire AI network. As AI and automation is just a code, if hacker gets access to this code and altered a code, they can control the automation. So you must ensure that AI and automation is safe against such attacks.

8. RFID Skimming-

Know more at- https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/most-common-reasons-of-iot-security-threats/