Internet of Things (IoT) Security.

IoT devices are not built with security in mind. Lack of standards, technology fragmentation, and reuse of old and cheap embedded software stacks are just a few reasons for the problems. Another issue is performance - complex protocols with encryption require faster processors and more memory. All this makes development more complex and drives up the price for the end user. Of course, all the software has to run on an "out-of-the-box" smartphone - with all the security weaknesses and gaps of the standard operating systems for such devices. And this is not limited to the consumer sector. Often, the same technology is used for enterprise solutions - the good news is that in this case, there are usually other, more secure solutions available. Mostly... - And they don't come cheap anymore.

IoT also faces data protection issues - at least in most countries. Particular attention is being paid to wearables that pass on health-related data. This data is often collected by insurance companies, which then create so-called health profiles that affect the insurance policy. The more you exercise and "stay away from the drinks" - the cheaper the policy. Beside the moral aspect, this opens doors for several attack vectors. Loss of data integrity is the main threat. But also attacks against availability and confidentiality of the data are possible.

Another concern is the use of standard IoT devices in ICS environments. IoT often breaks down the isolation of the different network layers in a production environment. ICS hardware and software follows strict standards and is designed for an isolated environment - IoT uses non-standard, open technology that focuses only on connectivity. This can break a plant's entire safety model by adding just one (fake) IoT sensor - for example, a wireless device that uses its own protocol to read values from an ICS sensor and relay that data to an external device. This is one of the dreams of many Industrie 4.0 architects, but also the nightmare of most security experts....