In the previous post, we shared with you the advantages of using the IoT for business matters if you work for or own a manufacturing company. Today Forte Group experts are ready to provide you with information about threats which accompany the use of IoT.
The main concerns regarding utilizing the IoT technologies are as following:
Possible Lack of Control Due to Total Automation
No, it is not about the rise of the machines – we just should admit the fact that the smarter technologies used, the more depends on them and the more serious consequences can be in case if something goes wrong. We previously mentioned automation as one of the huge advantages of the Internet of Things – it definitely makes manufactures more efficient and people’s lives better. However, if something interferes in the established automated process, one small factor may lead to unpredicted events.
As an example, let’s consider the story which happened not to an industrial giant, but just to an ordinary American family. A 6-year-old girl from Dallas, Texas, casually talking to Amazon’s voice-activated Echo Dot named Alexa, managed to order herself a $170 dollhouse along with four pounds of cookies.
This story has a continuation: after the remark mentioning the situation with the ordered dollhouse on a TV show, owners of Alexa Echo Dot who were watching the show, noticed their devices started ordering dollhouses.
We should mention that Alexa’s settings in the device’s application allow either to add a password (which in fact the mom of the 6-year-old did afterwards) or just to turn off voice ordering. But how many people actually used these options before the incidents?
Similar situation on an industrial scale could lead, for example, to overproduction or overflow of warehouses, or spoiled batch of a product – there are many options. The IoT technologies are powerful and difficult to overestimate but it is important to use them wisely, fine-tune and analyze all possible scenarios.
Security issues
According to the recent Pwnie Express report, the majority of IT security professionals agree that the Internet of Things poses considerable threats to companies, and connected devices are one of major security issues.
Unfortunately, such fears are not unfounded and are consistent with practice. In a report released by the security firm TrapX Labs, researches described a method allowing criminals to circumvent defenses and gain access to the IoT devices in modern hospitals. Healthcare institutions with connected medical devices are increasingly being attacked by hackers whose main target are patient medical records. Stolen patients’ data are then sold on the dark web.
Safety issues
These issues follow from the security issues. Such industries like healthcare and automobile industry are closely connected with safety of people. Any changes in the drugs dosage and prescription or in a car’s behavior after actions of hackers may lead to dramatic consequences.
Security researcher Billy Rios while being in hospital accidentally noticed that the drug infusion pump which delivered medicines, was the same he had previously explored and found vulnerabilities in it. This security flaw would make it possible to remotely change the amount of drugs up to a deadly dosage.
Researchers from Belgium Eduard Marin and Dave Singelée, examined pacemakers from the position of blind attackers and managed to hack them from up to five meters away gaining the ability to deliver fatal shocks or turn off life-saving treatment.
These are just a few examples out of dozens that pose a real threat to people's lives because of vulnerabilities in the IoT equipment in healthcare.
As for the automobile industry, the situation is very similar. For example, in 2015 security researchers managed to hack a Jeep Cherokee from a distance of a few kilometers, disable its brakes and then send it to the ditch. After the incident Chrysler had to recall nearly 1.4M vehicles to fix the issue.
Human lives can be at stake, and this is the responsibility of the manufacturers of the IoT devices – to ensure reliable protection against hacking.
As a conclusion
They say, one drop of poison infects the whole tun of wine, however in case of the IoT technologies all the pitfalls can be eliminated: where there's a will, there's a way.
