What’s IoT ?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term that describes the process of connecting everyday physical objects to the internet, ranging from lightbulbs to medical devices to wearables, smart devices, and even smart cities.³
How Does it Work ?
An IoT ecosystem is made up of web-enabled smart devices that use embedded systems like processors, sensors, and communication hardware to collect, send, and act on data from their surroundings.
IoT devices exchange sensor data by connecting to an IoT gateway or other edge device, where data is either sent to the cloud for analysis or analyzed locally.
These devices occasionally communicate with other related devices and act on the information they receive from one another.
The devices do the majority of the work without human intervention, though people can interact with them to set them up, give them instructions, or access the data.
What’s the importance of IoT ?
The importance of IoT is its influence. The Industrial IoT goes beyond the simple exchange of data by connecting devices, systems and people in intelligent, real-world applications to enable environments such as automated factories, smart cities and connected healthcare.
The Industrial IoT is defined as the automated interaction between smart devices and systems, exchanging data to an offsite or cloud-based solution for meaningful, time-sensitive analytics using components with very low energy consumption, that are simple to install and based on industry standards. Traditional embedded systems are at the heart of this phenomenon, having evolved from standalone systems to become a network of connected devices and systems.
IoT security and privacy issues
Security issues:
The Internet of Things (or IoT), which enables the networked interconnection of everyday objects, is becoming increasingly popular in many aspects of our lives ranging from entertainment to health care. While the IoT brings a set of invaluable advantages and opportunities with it, there is also evidence of numerous challenges that are yet to be resolved. This is certainly the case with regard to ensuring the cyber security of the IoT, and there are various examples of devices being hacked. Despite this evidence, little is known about the public perceptions of the opportunities and challenges presented by the IoT. To advance research in this direction, we mined the social media platform Twitter to learn about public opinion about the IoT.
Analysing a longitudinal dataset of more than 6.7 million tweets, we reveal insights into public perceptions of the IoT, identifying big data analytics as the most positive aspect, whereas security issues are the main public concern on the negative side. Our study serves to highlight the importance of keeping IoT devices secure, and remind manufacturers that it is a concern that remains unresolved, at least insofar as the public believes. ¹
Privacy issues:
The data generated by IoT devices is radically staggering for all the right reasons.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, less than 10,000 households could create almost 150 million discrete data points daily. Therefore, you can clearly notice the increased possibilities for breaches of privacy in IoT. You have more entry points for hackers while leaving sensitive information and your IoT devices vulnerable.²
IoT users would also have to find eavesdropping as one of the ominous answers to ‘What are the privacy concerns in IoT?’ for specific reasons. Imagine a hacker using one of your smart home appliances to snoop in your personal life. As a matter of fact, hackers and even manufacturers could use a connected device to basically invading an individual’s home.
For example, researchers have been successful in eavesdropping in IoT by intercepting unencrypted data from a smart meter device. The unencrypted data helped in identify the television show an individual was watching at the particular instance of time.
The next and probably the most important entry among privacy issues in IoT would refer to unwanted public exposure. IoT device manufacturers often have long documentation for terms of service, and there is barely anyone who reads the document thoroughly. According to the Federal Trade Commission, manufacturers and enterprises could leverage data offered willingly by consumers for making employment decisions.
Conclusion
Thus, IoT is so important in our daily life and it’s impact is getting bigger and bigger by time but, the lack of security and privacy push many users back to not engage in this new technology hoping for it to improve in the next years so it would be more secure so it can be used in one’s private life.
Webography
1: A longitudinal analysis of the public perception of the opportunities and challenges of the Internet of Things — Arkaitz Zubiaga , Rob Procter , Carsten Maple
2: The security and privacy issues that come with the Internet of Things — Insider Intelligence
3: What is the Internet of Things (IoT)? — RedHat
