HOW TO SECURE THE INDUSTRIAL IoT SPONSORED BY
INTRODUCTION One of the main challenges in the Industrial IoT (IIoT) is that devices are deployed for long periods of time in environments that cannot be described as classically secure. The access control that is in place for many other types of devices is typically not present in IIoT devices because these end points are exposed to the outside world. IIoT devices therefore need to be protected from the environments they operate in, for a long lifecycle of 10-15 years, and safeguarded from criminals that can attack both the back-end of the IIoT system and the device itself. These challenges can be compounded by a lack of cohesion between the different types of security solutions being deployed. Companies typically are organised into a device division and a back-end division and the two don’t necessarily work together in a coordinated fashion to address security challenges as a centralised effort. Real and solid security must encompass securing the device, securing the data, securing the cloud, securing the network and securing the lifecycle management. This is what creates the trust needed in a robust IoT ecosystem. Failures in either area could result in breaches that could affect an entire project.
The traditional boundaries of business are changing.The speed of doing business is accelerating and creating a fast-moving landscape in which discontinuities can be exploited to enable security breaches. In addition, more stakeholders are becoming involved in the value chain, increasing the number of points at which organisations interconnect and security attacks can occur.
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On top of these changes, a generalised surge in data is leading to heightened privacy concerns and greater awareness of insecure data risks. User organisations are
increasingly demanding secure solutions from product and service providers. This is, of course, a good thing and IIoT providers increasingly need to be prepared and able to supply answers to their customers’ security concerns.
To learn more about the challenges associated with IoT Security, please watch this webinar
ANALYSING RISK There’s a growing need for organisations to perform risk analysis so they can evaluate the threats associated with their business and IoT deployment. This is the best approach to ensure the right level of security for their IoT infrastructure. A key question to address therefore is where to start from. Quite often, isolated security initiatives are taken which could be on the device or the back-end but seldom address both. Yet doing one without the other leaves a huge opening in the security of an organisation’s systems for the malicious to exploit. Examples exist of companies that want to increase security on the device hardware but which utilise and rely on public cloud hosting without really knowing the security level this offers. One very important aspect often not foreseen by the integrators is the device client authentication. One of the simplest security breaches is the sequential authentication of devices. This means that if criminals get their hands on one of several device credentials they can work out the identity scheme for the entire sequence of devices. This enables them to create clones or new devices with identities still to be accepted by the back-end.
SECURE SMART ENERGY Industries that have taken on board threats of this type include the smart energy market. This is an advanced sector where active stakeholders are well aware that their devices can give access to critical infrastructures. Therefore they understand the value to criminals of accessing their devices. Many of the most advanced security systems are being shipped into this sector now. The smart energy sector typically faces substantial challenges in addressing the credential assurance issue. This market is highly fragmented in terms of regulation and there is a need for heavy personalisation of credentials. On the back-end, massive amounts of credentials are required to be generated to support each device so clones or fake devices can’t be created if one device was to be breached. The idea is to deliver a massive volume of credentials that are stored in the infrastructure so when the smart meters are installed the credentials are ready to be deployed.
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The smart energy market is among the most advanced IIoT sectors. As many energy utilities have plans to roll out smart energy programmes, we expect millions of smart connected devices to be installed. In Germany alone, a minimum of ten million smart energy gateways will be deployed. Any contributor to the smart grid – be they small
or big energy producers, users or capacity managers – needs to be strongly trusted. And, as soon as you look at private residences and new small energy producers, it’s clear they will all need gateways so the produced energy can be loaded on to the power network and efficiently and safely managed. To be strongly secured, gateways need to incorporate tamper-resistant hardware environments and the capability to manage the lifecycle of the secure container in the box to ensure long-life security. There is potential for device makers to view this type of highly secure gateway as an access point for other secure devices in the home. This would present a much stronger security scheme than the home automation market offers today. With secure gateways in place, companies will be able to run new business models and provide new secure home automation services.
AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR SECURITY Security in the automotive and connected car sectors is enabling new opportunities. Virtual car keys, for example, enable a smartphone to unlock a user’s private car or, in the public domain, rental cars or fleet vehicles. The on-demand access rights enablement needs to be strongly secure, though, to make sure only authorised users can get access to a vehicle to drive it, repair it or even drop a parcel into it. Strong interest in this capability exists among automotive OEMs and solutions are being deployed now. For existing vehicle fleets, equipment can be added to the vehicle to support Bluetooth-enabled passive entry passive start (PEPS) capability that is based on authentication and credentials, for example. While this example is smartphone centric, delivering a soldered eSIM card for the PCU (processor control unit) of the vehicle with cellular modules to provide telematics and infotainment services operated by the car maker is an interesting approach to maintaining security. Tamper-resistant secure elements or solderable eSIMs can be deployed to enable OEMs to embed their own credential schemes and provide authentication from the car to their back-end. There are security issues still to be addressed in less mature markets. For instance, if On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) dongles are not secure enough they can affect the behaviour of the vehicle’s systems. Some car makers have gone so far as to deny certain types of dongles so the car won’t start or the instrument cluster will be turned off if an unapproved dongle attempts to connect. Some dongle makers are therefore using a secure container type of technology that enables dongles to connect only to the OEM’s back-end.
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Most of the time, the main driver for deploying security is risk mitigation and risk reduction but the market is starting to see the revenue generating potential of security-related capabilities. Smart energy gateways can be used to serve trusted home automation environments with capabilities being sold to new service providers. This is not a popular approach so far in the automotive market but, once the initial secure enabler is present in the vehicle, people will look at ways of monetising it more. We could therefore see a secure automotive platform being used for a range of additional services such as premium infotainment and other forms of driver services.
SECURITY ACROSS THE FRAGMENTED CONNECTIVITY ECOSYSTEM Although the more mature IoT security technologies are currently focused on the 3GPP network technology roadmap, including IoT-optimised LTE, it is becoming increasingly necessary for vendors to bring secure technology to the emerging low power wide area network (LPWAN). Security here starts with establishing processes for credential provisioning of devices and their authentication to the network. As IoT device volumes grow radically, automated processes rather than manual ones are required. A system to generate credentials is required to enable keys to be delivered as securely as possible via a formalised link enabling mutual authentication. Such a system can also be implemented for a LoRa network to allow device authentication against a key stored in the network. This essentially brings a trusted third party on board, taking care of the key provisioning management, but the solution can also be deployed at the customer premise, for full solution management.
CONCLUSION A complete approach to security must consider the entire security lifecycle of a connected object, comprising all stages from pre-installation of modules, data at rest and in motion from the network to the cloud and at the back-end. There are three critical elements to achieving IIoT security. 1) The device must be secured utilising device access security, sensitive data security, communication encryption and software integrity protection. 2) The cloud must be secured using big data encryption, server protection and cloud application security technologies. 3) The security lifecycle must be managed using software activation and licensing, dynamic key management for authentication and encryption, and the secure provisioning of key credentials and tokens. Only when all three of these security capabilities are integrated can comprehensive security exist. However, it’s not enough just to deploy security technologies and systems. It’s critical to view IIoT security as an ongoing process that covers the infrastructure, the data, the networks and the device and continually evolves to mitigate and prevent new types of threats.
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That process must be informed by expert knowledge and capabilities. Organisations should rely on security experts that can provide consulting services to assess the risks they face and understand the regulatory environment they operate in. Good security starts with defined security requirements and a validation plan to check those are being met. This testing and evaluation should encompass all systems and services and utilise methods including reverse engineering and physical and logical manipulation. A final capability should be ongoing training to ensure employees can quickly understand possible vulnerabilities and methodologies and the main countermeasures available for each type of fraud. Security is no longer an unwelcome additional cost, it is fundamental to being able to do business in the internet of things. Moreover, organisations that deploy secure solutions and instil good security practices across their operations are well-placed to generate new revenues. Security in IoT enables new business models and their monetisation with faster and easier remote deployment of applications, enabling better customer experience in the long run.
To learn more about the importance of being able to connect, secure and monetise your IoT deployments, watch the video
The ability to secure the Industrial Internet of Things is now as critical to the success of IoT apps and services as the sensors, networks and back-end IT that all underpin the business of IIoT providers. It is an issue that is not going to go away so organisations should build appropriate security processes that position them not just for this early stage of the IIoT but for the mass market and the as yet unknown threats that the future holds.
For further information and to gain a deeper understanding of the wider issues facing organisations as they attempt to secure the Internet of Things, please download the Gemalto IoT Security eBook
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MARKET INSIGHTS Concern about the security of early IoT deployments has emerged as the leading impediment to new IoT projects, with 46.2% of 533 respondents to a 451 Research survey expressing concern. Organisations take an average of 46 days and can spend up to $2m to recover from a cyberattack, reports the Ponemon Institute of Cybercrime Study 2015. Worldwide spending on Internet of Things (IoT) security will reach $348 million in 2016, a 23.7% increase from 2015 spending of $281.5 million, according to Gartner. Juniper Research reports that the total value of IoT services will hit $290 billion by 2020 more than doubling from $138 billion in 2015. The IoT security market is driven by rising security concerns in critical infrastructures and strict government regulations and is expected to grow from $7.9bn in 2016 to $36.95bn by 2021 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 36.1%, reports research from MarketsandMarkets. Beecham Research expects that revenues from device authentication, device management, data management, billing and security will exceed $3billion by 2020. Out of these, the firm sees security and data management services generating $1.8billion alone. A survey conducted recently by Current Analysis among 1,000 enterprises on their investments in IoT technology disclosed that security is still a key concern. One-third of the businesses surveyed listed security as their top worry, and 17% of the companies surveyed that had evaluated but chosen not to implement an IoT project cited security concerns as the primary reason.
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