By: Shubhangi Negi, BCA 6th Sem, 1st Shift
Internet of things is basically the term given to the various everyday machines, vehicles and other objects to communicate over the internet with the use of sensors or actuators embedded in them. These objects together make up the Internet of Things (IoT). One of the main features of IOT is that it allowed us to sense/control objects remotely.

IoT received a lot of initial hype and it has also been a ‘buzzword’ in the IT sector for years now. Some experts also went to the length of estimating that but the year 2020, IoT will have connected over 50 billion objects. This was back in 2011. Why has a prospect so promising succumbed to sluggish development and limited commercialization? While IoT is a great step towards a better-connected world, it also comes with a number of challenges.

Challenges:

1. Data Encryption: Is my data secure?

Data encryption is extremely important as it allows us to exchange protected data or protect our data if we do not wish to anyone without a key to be able to access it. IoT environment works on the collection and processing of data. A standard IoT application collects tones of data. Most of which is personal and in need of protection. This is very crucial to major companies and firms. But it is very difficult for big businesses to maintain effective security when it comes to IoT. According to SC Magazine, a team of researchers has just defeated one of the most widely used encryption solutions for IoT, The Algebraic Eraser. What’s more, they’ve done it using parameters provided by the creators of the key itself. Which raises the question: Can effective protection ever be achieved through encryption?

2. Data Authentication: An important security measure.

New technologies mean new threats to data. The challenge of the IoT is that of trust. Authentication means making sure that the user of a device is who he/she says he/she is. It is critical for the software to know who all are authorised to access/send the data because if the information gets to the wrong users, the integrity of the data gets compromised. Having a single user also is not safe in the chance that a defect is detected in the connected device making data authentication a big security challenge of IoT.

3. Side-channel Attacks: What are those?

The focus in this kind of attacks is on information gained from ‘physical implementation of a cryptosystem’ rather than ‘brute force’ or ‘theoretical weaknesses in the algorithms’. Which means that these types of attacks focus more on how that information is being presented and less on the information itself.

4. Hardware: Yes, it is important.

Experts say that the Key to IoT Security Is a Strong Hardware Foundation. IP thefts of a network device can occur when it doesn’t have sufficient hardware security. Most of the industrial equipment have low lifetimes and relying on software alone isn’t the best idea. Hardware security chips like the ones found in credit cards and Aadhaar cards are extremely helpful in maintaining security.

Overcoming all these challenges is an ongoing process and it could take years still, to achieve our ideal goal. While the top of this staircase may not be near, each invention takes us a step upward.

By: Vishesh Berera, BCA 2nd Semester, 2nd Shift

IoT comprises of devices and sensors interacting and communicating with other machines, objects and environments. There will be 26 billion devices connected to each other by 2020. There are still other predictions that put this number at 50 billion devices by 2020. As a result of this exploding growth in the interaction between devices and systems, huge volumes of data are expected to be generated and moved across information processing systems. These raw data will be processed and analysed to generate meaningful information and to perform actionable decision making. The Internet of Things (IoT) is captivating organisations because of its potential to rapidly transform businesses and people’s lives. It is widely believed that IoT will precipitate a major shift in people’s lives similar to how the Internet transformed the way people communicate and share information.

Concerns have been raised that the Internet of Things is being developed rapidly without appropriate consideration of the profound security challenges involved and the regulatory changes that might be necessary. IoT suffers from platform fragmentation and lack of technical standards, a situation where the variety of IoT devices, in terms of both hardware variations and differences in the software running on them, makes the task of developing applications that work consistently between different inconsistent technology ecosystems hard. Customers may be hesitant to bet their IoT future on a proprietary software or hardware devices that use proprietary protocols that may fade or become difficult to customise and interconnect.

IoT's amorphous computing nature is also a problem for security since patches to bugs found in the core operating system often do not reach users of older and lower-price devices. One set of researchers says that the failure of vendors to support older devices with patches and updates leaves more than 87% of active devices vulnerable.

According to the Business Insider Intelligence Survey conducted in the last quarter of 2014, 39% of the respondents said that security is the biggest concern in adopting Internet of Things technology. In particular, as the Internet of Things spreads widely, cyber attacks are likely to become an increasingly physical (rather than simply virtual) threat. In a January 2014 article in Forbes, cybersecurity columnist Joseph Steinberg listed many Internet-connected appliances that can already "spy on people in their own homes" including televisions, kitchen appliances, cameras, and thermostats. Computer-controlled devices in automobiles such as brakes, engine, locks, hood and truck releases, horn, heat, and dashboard have been shown to be vulnerable to attackers who have access to the onboard network. In some cases, vehicle computer systems are Internet-connected, allowing them to be exploited remotely. Later hackers demonstrated remote control of insulin pumps and implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

As a response to increasing concerns over security, the Internet of Things Security Foundation (IoTSF) was launched on 23 September 2015. IoTSF has a mission to secure the Internet of Things by promoting knowledge and best practice. Its founding board is made from technology providers and telecommunications companies including BT, Vodafone, Imagination Technologies and Pen Test Partners. A study by HP’s security unit Fortify found that 70 percent of popular consumer IoT devices are easily hackable. When Kaspersky Lab examined industrial controls systems exposed to the Shodan search engine it found seven percent of 172,982 ICS components vulnerable to attack had “critical” issues.

Some of the simplest IoT devices (or machine-to-machine) devices lack adequate processing power and storage to host endpoint security software. They are real-time OS’s which do not offer support for a wide variety of endpoint protection products. The list of IoT products without the ability to have the firmware updated with security protection is long. In the rush to connect everything to the internet, no one has stopped to think if it should be connected to the internet. Security is taking a backseat to convenience and ease of access. Does it make sense to be able to check your Gmail account on your fridge? Or does a building’s HVAC system really need to be linked to the internet?

Without proper investment in secure protocols, website interfaces, and APIs, the risks associated with IoT seldom outweigh the benefits Internet of Things applications collect tonnes of data. Data retrieval and processing is an integral part of the whole IoT environment. Most of this data is personal and needs to be protected through encryption.

To address this IoT security issue you can use Secure Sockets Layer protocol or SSL wherever your data is present online. Websites already use SSL certification to encrypt and protect the user’s data online. This is only half part of the equation other half is to protect the wireless protocol side. While data is being transferred wirelessly it needs encryption as well. Sensitive data like locations need to be available to be concerned user and no one else. Therefore, make sure you use a wireless protocol with inbuilt encryption.

"Hackers are beginning to realise that the value of protected health information (PHI) is far more valuable than personally identifiable information (PII) and the weakness in the hospital network makes them a greater target than in the past. What makes this extremely dangerous for the patient is that the hacker is tampering with biomedical devices like infusion pumps, which can then become a life-threatening situation," he said.

Among the recent examples, one involves researchers who hacked into two cars and wirelessly disabled the brakes, turned the lights off and switched the brakes full on—all beyond the control of the driver. In another case, a luxury yacht was lured off course by researchers hacking the GPS signal that it was using for navigation.

Home control hubs have been found to be vulnerable, allowing attackers to tamper with heating, lighting, power and door locks, other cases involve industrial control systems being hacked via their wireless network and sensors.

We are already seeing hacked TV sets and video cameras [and] child monitors that have raised privacy concerns, and even hacked power meters which to date have been used to steal electric power, adds Paul Henry, a principal at security consulting firm VNet Security LLC in Boynton Beach, Fla., and a senior instructor at the SANS Institute, a cooperative research and education organization in Bethesda, MD."A recent article spoke of a 'hacked light bulb,'" Henry says. "I can imagine a worm that would compromise large numbers of these Internet-connected devices and amass them into a botnet of some kind. Remember it is not just the value or power of the device that the bad guy wants; it is the bandwidth it can access and use in a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack.

What Can We Do?

While threats will always exist with the IoT as they do with other technology endeavours, it is possible to bolster the security of IoT environments using security tools such as data encryption, strong user authentication, resilient coding and standardised and tested APIs that react in a predictable manner.


Security needs to be built in as the foundation of IoT systems, with rigorous validity checks, authentication, data verification, and all the data needs to be encrypted. At the application level, software development organisations need to be better at writing code that is stable, resilient and trustworthy, with better code development standards, training, threat analysis and testing. As systems interact with each other, it's essential to have an agreed interoperability standard, which safe and valid. Without a solid bottom-top structure we will create more threats with every device added to the IoT. What we need is a secure and safe IoT with privacy protected with the tough trade off but not impossible.

For organisations to realise the full value of IoT, they must address security holistically. First, they need to physically secure IoT, especially sensors and smart meters that are out in the field. Second, they need to secure IoT connections. IoT connection security should provide the ability to easily identify, authenticate, onboard, segment, and monitor connected devices and then enforce access policies consistently and continuously. Finally, they need to secure data collected by IoT devices.

By: Arpit Sharma, BCA 2nd Year, 2nd shift                                                                      

The internet of things (IOT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

These all objects are connected to the internet just like your smartwatch, Fitbit, or even your refrigerator. These devices are able to collect and transmit data via. the internet, contributing to our big data world.

A thing, in the internet of things, can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a biochip transponder, an automobile that has built-in sensors to alert the driver when the tire pressure is low or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and ability to transfer data over the network.

How will this impact you?

The new rule for the future is going to be, “anything that can be connected will be connected.”  But why on earth would you want so many connected devices talking to each other?  There are many examples of what this might look like or what the potential value might be.  Say for example you are on your way to a meeting, your car could have access to your calendar and already know the best route to take if the traffic is heavy your car might send a text to the other party notifying them that you will be late.  What if your alarm clock wakes up you at 6 am and then notifies your coffee maker to start brewing coffee for you?

 What if your office equipment knew when it was running low on supplies and automatically re-ordered more?  What if the wearable device you used in the workplace could tell you when and where you were most active and productive and shared that information with other devices that you used while working?

On a broader scale, the IOT can be applied to things like transportation networks “smart cities” which can help us reduce waste and improve efficiency for things such as energy use; this helping us understand and improve how we work and live.  Take a look at the visual below to see what something like that can look like.

You can have a look at visual to see what something like that will look.

According to the Gartner ( a technology research corporation), there will be nearly 26 billion on the internet of things by 2020.

Integration with the internet implies that devices will use an IP address as a unique identifier. Due to the limited address space of IPv4 ( which allows for 4.3 billion unique addresses) objects in the IoT will have to use IPv6 to accommodate the extremely large address space required.

How would this help the world?

•    Environmental monitoring

Environmental monitoring applications will help in environmental protection by monitoring air or water quality, atmospheric or soil conditions, and can even include areas like wildlife and monitoring their habitats.

•    Infrastructure management
Monitoring and controlling operations of urban and rural infrastructures like bridges, railway tracks etc.
IoT devices can also be used to control infrastructure like bridges to provide access to ships.

•    Medical and Healthcare systems
IoT devices can be used to enable remote health monitoring and emergency notification systems. These health monitoring devices can range from blood pressure and heart rate monitors to advanced devices capable of monitoring specialized implants, such as pacemakers or advanced hearing aids.

•    Transportation
The IoT can assist in the integration of communications, control, and information processing across various transportation systems.
Dynamic interaction between the vehicles will provide smart traffic control, smart parking, electronic toll collection systems, logistic and fleet management, vehicle control safety and road assistance.

ARTICLE BY - Vinayak Sharma,BCA- 2nd year, 2nd shift

IoT Internet of things” an era where machines talk to each other”.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects, devices, vehicles, buildings and other items which are embedded in electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity (cloud), which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The term “Internet of Things” isn’t new. Almost 20 years ago, MIT professors (Kevin Ashton) described the world where “things” (devices or sensors) are connected and able to share data. IoT focuses on Machine to Machine communication (M2M). It is the vast network of interconnected devices that share data over the internet to improve productivity and automation.

“Things” can be referred as a vast variety of devices such as Room thermostat, washing machine, smart homes, and Smart vehicle. IoT is the new future where cloud, hardware (microchips, sensor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), software make their own world communicate and provide better efficiency to the human being. As by OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) IoT devices online per 100 inhabitants, Korea has 37.9 and India have 0.6.

According to ABI (Allied Business Intelligence), there will be 30 billion devices will be connected wirelessly to the Internet of things by 2020. As we know Hardware costs are falling. The costs of Internet of Things components such as microchips, GPS sensors, and accelerometers have fallen as volumes have increased. And it is not simply a cost reduction—tiny microchips are now capable of running more advanced software than ever. The software is more upgraded than ever. The ability to run JavaScript on devices has been increased and python is also a very strong language to work with IoT. Connectivity is increasing rapidly. Previously, IoT solutions were limited to the wire or wireless local area network connections as mobile operators priced M2M connections out of range. No longer. Fueled by the additional capacity that advanced cellular networks provide, mobile operators are embracing the Internet of Things. IoT can be used in MEDIA (Data Capture), Environment Monitoring (water quality, soil condition), Infrastructure Management (e.g. device monitoring- Bridge to provide access to ships), Manufacturing (Assembly line, robots on factory floor with back-end systems), Medical Healthcare system (remote health monitoring, emergency alerts to Cellphone), Building And Home Automation (Smart house with auto thermostat and door open-close alert, lighting), Large Scale Deployment  e.g.: Songdo, South Korea, the first of its kind fully equipped and wired smart city, is near completion. Nearly everything in this city is planned to be wired, connected and turned into a constant stream of data that would be monitored and analyzed by an array of computers with little, or no human intervention.

The Internet needs Network, basically a specific address to each device. IP address as a unique identifier. However, due to the limited address space of IPv4 objects in the IoT will have to use IPv6 to accommodate the extremely large address space required.  Objects in the IoT will not only be devices with sensory capabilities but also provide actuation capabilities (e.g., bulbs or locks controlled over the Internet).

To a large extent, the future of the Internet of Things will not be possible without the support of IPv6.

Microsoft, Intel, Facebook and many more companies are investing in IoT. Developments kits are available to make any device into IoT for e.g.:  Intel, Microsoft, Arduino, ARM IoT starter Kit. Tiny Sensor, Microchips, RAM, CPU attached to one single Mini Computer size of a visiting card e.g.: Raspberry pi, Arduino (controller) are important for IoT future.

Most likely problem will be the "Basket of remotes" problem, where we'll have hundreds of applications to interface with hundreds of devices that don't share protocols for speaking with one another. To solve this problem, one of them called the "predictive interaction, where cloud or fog based decision makers will predict the user's next action and trigger some reaction.