+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is...

Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is...

Date post: 25-Sep-2020
Category:
Upload: others
View: 0 times
Download: 0 times
Share this document with a friend
59
Internet of Things Systematic literature review of security and future research Muhammad Aqeel Subject: Information Systems Corresponds to: 30 hp Presented: VT 2020 Supervisor: Franck Tetard Examiner: Mudassir Imran Mustafa Department of Informatics and Media
Transcript
Page 1: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

Internet of Things Systematic literature review of security and future research

Muhammad Aqeel

Subject: Information Systems Corresponds to: 30 hp Presented: VT 2020 Supervisor: Franck Tetard Examiner: Mudassir Imran Mustafa Department of Informatics and Media

Page 2: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

ii

Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to

Interconnect and exchange information and useful data. The IoT applications are highly

affirming to increase the level of comfort, efficiency and automations for the user. The high

level of security and privacy, authentication and recovery from the attacks is required to

implement IoT automated world. In this thesis I am presenting an overview of IoT layer

architecture and attacks regarding security from the layer’s perspective. In addition, this thesis

will provide an overview to solve the security and privacy threats. Furthermore, this paper

discusses the current state of research on IoT security requirements and future research

directions with respect to IoT security and privacy, a detailed review of the security challenges

and sources of threat in the IoT applications is presented. Finally, this thesis presents the

security issues, various emerging and existing technologies focused on achieving a high degree

of trust in the IoT applications.

Keywords: Internet of Things, characteristics of IoT, IoT security, IoT future

development.

Page 3: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to acknowledge everyone who played a role in my academic accomplishment.

First of all, my family, who supported me with love and understanding. Without you, I could

never have reached current level of success. Secondly, my teachers and particularly my thesis

supervisor Frack Tetard, who guided me throughout the research process. Thank you all for

your support.

Page 4: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

iv

Table of Contents 1. Internet of Things (IoT) background ............................................................................... 10

1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 10

1.1.1. IoT devices ...................................................................................................... 13

1.1.2. IoT technologies ............................................................................................. 14

1.2. Information Security .................................................................................................. 15

1.2.1. Security threats of IoT ........................................................................................ 17

1.2.2. IoT security implementation .............................................................................. 17

1.3. Problem definition ..................................................................................................... 17

1.4. Research questions .................................................................................................... 18

1.5. Research methodology .............................................................................................. 18

1.6. Delimitation ................................................................................................................ 18

1.7. Thesis structure .......................................................................................................... 19

2. Background of IoT .......................................................................................................... 20

2.1 IoT definition .......................................................................................................... 20

2.1.1. Characteristics of IoT ...................................................................................... 21

2.2. IoT Architecture ......................................................................................................... 22

2.2.1. Three layers architecure ..................................................................................... 23

2.2.2. Five layers architecture ...................................................................................... 24

3. Methodology .................................................................................................................. 25

3.1. Research methodology .......................................................................................... 25

3.2. Systematic literature review using qualitative approach ....................................... 25

3.2.1. Systematic Literature review .......................................................................... 26

3.3. Research process .................................................................................................... 26

3.3.1. Purpose of the literature review .................................................................... 27

3.3.2. Searching the literature .................................................................................. 28

3.3.3. Data extraction strategy ................................................................................. 31

3.3.4. Quality appraisal ............................................................................................ 33

3.3.5. Synthesis of the literature .............................................................................. 33

3.3.6. Conducting the review ................................................................................... 34

4. Results ............................................................................................................................ 36

4.1. IoT security ................................................................................................................. 36

4.1.1. IoT security vs traditional IT security .................................................................. 36

4.1.2. IoT vulnerabilities ............................................................................................... 37

4.2. IoT Security Issues ...................................................................................................... 39

Page 5: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

v

4.2.1. Perception layer/sensing layer threats .............................................................. 39

4.2.2. Network layer/transportation layer ................................................................... 41

4.2.3. Middleware layer ............................................................................................... 42

4.2.4. Application layer ................................................................................................ 43

4.3. Solution of IoT layers threats ..................................................................................... 45

4.3.1. Perception layer ................................................................................................. 45

4.3.2. Network layer ..................................................................................................... 45

4.3.3. Middleware layer ............................................................................................... 46

4.3.4. Application layer ................................................................................................ 46

4.4. IoT future ................................................................................................................... 46

4.4.1. IoT future research ............................................................................................. 47

4.4.2. Hardware devices ............................................................................................... 48

4.4.3. Sensor ................................................................................................................. 49

4.4.4. Communication technology ............................................................................... 50

4.4.5. Network technology ........................................................................................... 50

4.4.6. Software and algorithms .................................................................................... 51

4.4.7. Data and signal processing technology .............................................................. 51

4.4.8. Discovery and search engine technology ........................................................... 51

4.4.9. Security & Privacy technology ............................................................................ 51

5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 53

5.1. Limitations .............................................................................................................. 54

5.2. IoT future work ....................................................................................................... 54

References: ............................................................................................................................ 55

Appendices: ............................................................................................................................ 58

Page 6: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

vi

List of Figures

Figure 1-1 Internet of Things

Figure 1-2 Number of connected devices from 2012 to 2020

Figure 1-3 IoT communication components

Figure 1-4 Internet of everything

Figure 1-5 The properties of IoT devices

Figure 2-1 Characteristics of IoT

Figure 2-2 Three layers architecture of IoT

Figure 2-3 Five layers architecture of IoT

Figure 3-1 Systematic literature review

Figure 3-2 Flowchart of inclusion and exclusion criteria

Figure 3-3 Data extraction strategy

Figure 3-4 Synthesize the literature

Figure 3-5 Systematic review flowchart

Figure 4-1 IoT future technology development

Page 7: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

vii

List of Tables

Table 1-1 IoT technologies

Table 1-2 Objectives of information security

Table 1-3 Objectives of information security

Table 3-1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Table 3-2 Number of selected papers

Table 3-3 Quality appraisal criteria

Table 4-1 IoT security vs Traditional IT security

Table 4-2 Common security vulnerabilities

Table 4-3 Perception layer threats

Table 4-4 Network layer threats

Table 4-5 Middleware layer threats

Table 4-6 Application layer threats

Table 4-7 IoT future development and research

Page 8: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

viii

List of acronyms and abbreviations

IoT Internet of Things

RFID Radio Frequency Identification

IP Internet Protocol

ITU-T International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication

Standardization Bureau

WSNs Wireless Sensor Networks

DoS Denial of service

GSM Global System of Mobile Communication

UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunication

Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity

ZB ZettaBytes

QoS Quality of service

IP Internet Protocol

ML Machine Learning

IDS Intrusion Detection Systems

IPS Intrusion Protection Systems

NFC Near Filed Communication

LAN Local Area Network

IoE Internet of Everything

AI Artificial Intelligence

IT Information Technology

Page 9: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

10

1. Internet of Things (IoT) background This chapter contains a comprehensive introduction to the IoT, IoT layers, IoT architecture.

After the introduction of IoT, rest of the chapters contain the detail discussion of the IoT

architecture and security.

1.1 Introduction The concept of IoT was first introduced by a member of the Radio Frequency Identification

(RFID) development community in 1999. IoT has become more relevant to the world because

of rapid growth of mobile devices, communication, cloud computing and data analytics (Patel

and Patel, 2016). Now a days, more than seven billion users are using the Internet to perform

different type of tasks like sending and receiving emails, sharing information on social media,

reading books, playing games, browsing, online shopping. This wide scale usage of the Internet

making possible to introduce new trends, this global communication infrastructure enabling

the machines to communicate with each other and take decisions (Cerullo et al., 2018). The

IoT is a world where billions of objects can communicate and share information, all of these

objects are connected over the Internet protocol (IP). These connected objects generate huge

amount of data regularly which is collected, analysed and used to perform actions, provide

intelligence for decision making (Patel and Patel, 2016).

Figure 1-1: Internet of Things (Patel and Patel, 2016)

Page 10: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

11

Figure 1-1 shows the implementation of IoT in almost all domains of the world as

transportation, agriculture, healthcare, energy production and distribution. IoT is transforming

the way we live today by making intelligent devices around us to perform daily tasks, smart

homes, smart cities, smart transportation etc. are the few examples which are linked with IoT

(Yousuf, Mahmoud, Aloul and Zualkernan, 2015).

The number of connected devices with the IoT environment is increasing every day. Burhan,

Rehman, Khan and Kim (2018) explains the reason of this rapid increase is; connected devices

provide comfort and produce good results compare to humans. Figure 1-2 shows number of

connected IoT devices from 2012 to 2020. The number of connected devices is increasing with

enormous speed as shown in the figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2: Number of connected devices from 2012 to 2020 ((Burhan, Rehman, Khan and Kim, 2018)

The IoT applications reduce human efforts because they perform tasks automatically

Alongside, the benefits of these devices, they also have to face challenges, one of the biggest

challenges is security and privacy. The communication is the most important part of the IoT

because all the connected devices must be able to communicate with each other.

Figure 1-3: IoT communication components

Device Mobile

Middleware/Cloud

Page 11: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

12

The main components of IoT for communication are shown in figure 1-3 (a) Hardware: consists

of physical components sensors, actuators etc. (b) Middleware: This is used for data storage

and contains computation tools which used for data analysis and (c) Presentation: visualization

and interpretation tools which can be widely accessed on different platforms (Gubbi, Buyya,

Marusic and Palaniswami, 2013).

Alaba, Othman, Hashem and Alotaibi (2017) explains that the IoT has established a universal

connection of people, objects, sensors, and services. The main objective of the IoT is to provide

a network infrastructure that allows communication protocols, software and incorporation of

physical/virtual sensors, personal computers, smart devices, automobiles, and different objects

of real life to connect with each other anytime on any network.

The increasing capabilities of different technologies like RFID, Wireless sensor network

(WSNs) and increased storage capacity of these technologies will increase the interconnected

devices. The different objects of our daily life such as people, vehicles, computers, books, TVs,

mobile phones, clothes, food, medicine, passports, luggage, etc. will have at least one unique

identification allowing them to communicate with one another (Abomhara and Koien, 2014).

Figure 1-4: Internet of Everything (adapted from Cisco, 2012)

Internet of everything (IoE) is the combination of people, process, data and things to make

network connections more valuable than ever before, it is helpful to change the information

People

Process

Data Things

Home

Business

Mobile

People to People

Machine to Machine

People to Machine

Page 12: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

13

into actions that create new capabilities increase economic opportunity for businesses,

individuals and countries (Cisco, 2012). Figure 1-4 shows the main components of IoE i)

people will be connected in more relevant and valuable ways ii) data will be more intelligent

to make better decisions iii) process deliver the right information to the right person at the right

time and iv) things are physical devices and objects connected to the Internet. IoE is helpful to

improve industry outcomes by increasing the power of the Internet, it is also helpful to increase

IoT progress (Evans, 2012).

1.1.1. IoT devices The IoT as discussed by Radoglou Grammatikis, Sarigiannidis and Moscholios (2019) consists

of many networks in which the devices can interact with each other via the Internet. These

devices are usually called as “things” and are discussed in the figure 1-5, each of these “things”

have its own properties.

Figure 1-5: The properties of IoT devices (Radoglou Grammatikis, Sarigiannidis and Moscholios, 2019)

Identification: This is the first property of connected devices. Each IoT device required to

identify uniquely within the network. Two methods IPV4 and IPV6 are used to assign unique

address to the objects in the network. Firstly, IPV4 was used for addressing but due to increase

of the object IPV6 is being used because it is 128 bit addressing scheme (Burhan, Rehman,

Khan and Kim, 2018).

Sensing: This method is used to obtain the information from the physical environment

(Radoglou Grammatikis, Sarigiannidis and Moscholios, 2019). Different sensing devices are

used to collect the data from the devices such as smart sensors, actuator, RFID tags (Burhan,

Rehman, Khan and Kim, 2018).

Communication: In this process connected devices sends and receive data, messages, files etc.

Different technologies are used to perform communication among objects such as Bluetooth,

Wireless networks, RFID etc.

Page 13: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

14

Computation: This method is used to process the information which is obtained from the

devices (Radoglou Grammatikis, Sarigiannidis and Moscholios, 2019). It is used to remove

unnecessary information. Different hardware and software platforms are available to perform

computing (Burhan, Rehman, Khan and Kim, 2018).

Services: It refers the functions provided by the devices to the users according to the

information which they receive (Radoglou Grammatikis, Sarigiannidis and Moscholios, 2019).

Semantics: It is the last property of the connected devices. It refers that the IoT devices have

the ability to obtain correct information from the physical environment and provide information

as services at the right time (Radoglou Grammatikis, Sarigiannidis and Moscholios, 2019).

1.1.2. IoT technologies IoT is used to connect different products with the digital world, this interconnection among the

devices is growing with the advancement of the technologies like sensors, smart phone, cloud

computing, communication capabilities etc. (Abomhara and Koien, 2014). The IoT is a

network of different physical objects like vehicles, machines, home appliances, and more that

use different technologies to exchange data over the Internet. Table 1-1 explains technologies

which support the concept of IoT.

Table 1-1: IoT technologies

IoT technologies Supporting technologies

Identification technologies RFID, WSN

Networks and Communication technologies GSM, UMTS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,

ZigBee

Software and Hardware technolgies Smart devices with enhanced inter-

device communication

Identification technologies: The connected devices in IoT environment needs to be defined

uniquely. The Identification technologies such as RFID and WSN are used for unique

identification of connected devices.

Page 14: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

15

Network and communication technologies: Technologies like Global system of mobile

communication (GSM), Universal mobile telecommunication (UMTS), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-

Fi), Bluetooth, ZigBee allows the devices to connect with each other. The communication

among the connected devices need to be secure so that the user can use the network with full

confidence and security assurance.

Software and hardware technologies: smart devices with high communication among device

will lead to smart systems providing high degrees of intelligence and autonomy, facilitating

the rapid IoT application deployment (Abomhara and Koien, 2014).

1.2. Information Security Information security is an important aspect of the life for the organizations and individuals

using Information system. These systems store and share important information which require

protections against a range of threats which require a variety of security controls. These

systems and information need to be protected from unauthorized access, disclosure, disruption,

modification. Vashi et al. (2017) discuss that the use of IoT of increasing rapidly which make

it more vulnerabilities and security problems. Burg, Chattopadhyay and Lam (2018) explains

the communication and security of IoT is provided by a huge wireless and wired infrastructure

that provide the connectivity among the devices.

The Internet is the underlying foundation of IoT, both of these technologies are facing same

type of security issues. IoT comprises of three main layers the perception layer, transportation

layer and the application layer. Each of these layers has its own security problems.

Information security comprises of three objectives i.e. Confidentiality, Integrity and

availability (Awad et al., 2018). The explainetion of Information security objectives is

available in the table 1-2.

Page 15: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

16

Table 1-2 Objectives of information security

Objectives Description

Confidentiality Confidentiality means, information should not be available or disclosed to unauthorized persons.

Integrity Integrity means, assurance of accuracy and reliability that no one can make changes without authorization.

Availability Availability means, that data or information

should be available when needed.

The main objectives of information security are discussed in the table 1-2. According to Awad

et al. (2018) the objectives explained in the above table are the most commonly available in all

the information security literature but there are few more properties which are equally

important for the information security. Those properties are explained in the table 1-3.

Table 1-3 Objectives of information security

Objectives/properties Description

Authenticity Authenticity means, that data/information is

genuine and being able to be verified and

trusted (Awad et al., 2018).

Accountability Accountability means, non-repudiation,

deterrence, fault isolation, intrusion

detection and prevention and legal action

(Awad et al., 2018).

Non-repudiation Both the sender and receiver provide the

proof of the sending and receiving the data

(Awad et al., 2018).

Reliability Reliability means, the results are consistent

and as they are intended.

Page 16: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

17

1.2.1. Security threats of IoT IoT is a layered architecture, it consists of three layers or five layers. Three layers are

perception layer, network layer and application layer and five layers are perception layer,

network layer, application layer, middleware layer and business layer. Each layer is susceptible

to security threats and attacks. These can be active, or passive. These threats can originate from

external sources or internal network (Yousuf, Mahmoud, Aloul and Zualkernan, 2015). Firstly,

attacks on perception layer could be leakage of confidential information, Denial of service

(Dos) attack etc. Secondly, attacks on the network layer could be sybil attack, sinkhole attack,

man in middle attack etc. Finally, attacks on the application layer could be malicious code

injection, sniffing attach etc.

1.2.2. IoT security implementation As discussed in the previous section each of the layer has different type of security attacks. The

different security measures are implemented to protect the data e.g. encryption; authentication,

confidentiality and access control.

1.3. Problem definition The IoT is not only a single technology, rather it is a combination of different hardware and

software technologies. The solutions provided by the IoT is based on the information

technology, which refers the hardware and software which use to store, retrieve and process

data (Patel and Patel, 2016). Furthermore, the communication technologies are also important

part of IoT. The IoT uses all the available technologies for communication like Bluetooth,

RFID, NFC, Wi Fi etc. These communication technologies need to be efficient, reliable and

secure to fill the requirements of the IoT.

The companies and employees in the industry are still unaware of this concept. The lack of

knowledge and awareness most of the companies are hesitant to deploy IoT. They are unaware

of the potential security and privacy issues connected to their deployment of IoT. The

companies need to know more about this concept because of above mentioned problems. They

want to know more about the potential threats and solutions regarding the security of IoT.

Furthermore, they want to know more about the competency required for the information

security and how cost effective these security issues in conjunction with their deployment of

Page 17: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

18

IoT. This knowledge and competence should help them to transfer from a non-IoT-business to

an IoT-business.

1.4. Research questions As discussed in the previous sections the IoT is a relatively new technology most of the

companies are hesitant to deploy IoT technology. Hopefully, this thesis provides the

information which is required by the companies to deploy IoT technology. Keeping in view,

this thesis work will focus on following questions.

Q 1. What are IoT security issues in the layered architecture?

Q 2. How the IoT security is being implemented in the layered architecture?

Q 3. How the technology can be improved for the IoT future growth?

1.5. Research methodology The research methodology of this thesis project is literature review using a qualitative

approach. Webster & Watson (2002) explains as a literature review creates a firm foundation

for advancing knowledge, a successful literature review facilitates theory development, closes

areas where a plethora or research exist, and uncovers areas where research is needed. The

purpose of literature review is to build a knowledge base of research. Systematic literature

review is used to find relevant research to answer the research questions.

1.6. Delimitation IoT is a mixture of different hardware and software technology. The IoT technology solutions

based on the information technology (IT), refers to hardware and software which used to store,

retrieve, process data and communications technology which includes electronic systems used

for communication between individuals or groups (Patel and Patel, 2016). IoT is a layered

architecture as discussed before, each of the layers have own security risks while performing

their actions. This thesis work will focus on privacy and security threats of IoT and

countermeasures used to overcome those threats. The different protocols are used for

communication among the connected devices. Unfortunately, these protocols are not the part

of this study because of the time limitations.

Page 18: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

19

1.7. Thesis structure Chapter 1 presents the brief introductionIoT and Information Security in conjunction with IoT.

Chapter 2 present the background of the IoT and its layered architecture. Chapter 3 present the

methodology used for the systematic literature review. Chapter 4 present the IoT security issues

and answer the research questions. At the end conclusion based on this research paper will be

discussed.

Page 19: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

20

2. Background of IoT

This chapter contains a comprehensive discussion about IoT its characteristic and IoT layered

architecture Definition of IoT

2.1 IoT definition

IoT has many definitions and different authors define this term differently. This variation

depends on which context the term is used and the aim of using the things. (Patel and Patel,

2016) defines IoT as IoT is not only a network of computers rather it has developed a network

of all type of devices like digital cameras, vehicles, smart phones, home appliances, medical

instruments and industrial systems, people, buildings, all of these connected devices can

communicate and share in order to achieve smart reorganizations, positioning, online upgrade,

process control and administration. Dorsemaine et al. (2015) defines IoT is an infrastructure

of connected objects which allows their management, data mining and the access to the data

they generate.”

The more comprehensive and recommended definition of IoT is proposed by International

Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (ITU-T). ITU-T

(2012) defines IoT as “a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced

services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing and evolving

interoperable information and communication technologies”. The interconnection of physical

world with the virtual world opens up new possibilities which enables to access anything from

any place. This interconnection can also increase the possibilities of new threats, security risks

and vulnerabilities.

The IoT can be defined in different ways as mentioned in the above definitions. All these

definitions are somehow relevant with each other. The IoT can be defined as follows based on

the definitions mentioned above “IoT is an infrastructure of the geographically connected

devices like smartphones, industrial systems, vehicles etc. which connects using

communication technologies to generate and access the data to provide accurate positioning,

safety and administration.”

Page 20: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

21

2.1.1. Characteristics of IoT The Internet of Things is the mixture of different hardware and software technologies. The IoT

solutions based on integration of information technology i.e. hardware and software used to

store, retrieve and process data (Patel and Patel, 2016). The Internet is the main communication

source for connectivity among different devices using wireless technologies such as RFID and

WSNs. These technologies use sensors to sense and monitor environment, these devices have

low resources in terms of computation, memory, storage and energy capacity (Viriyasitavat,

Anuphaptrirong and Hoonsopon, 2019).

Figure 2-1: Characteristics of IoT

The fundamental characteristics of the IoT are shown in figure 2-1. The characteristics of IoT

are Interconnectivity, things-related services, heterogeneity, dynamic changes, enormous scale,

safety and connectivity (Patel and Patel, 2016).

Interconnectivity: The IoT is the connection of different devices these devices can be

interlinked with each other using any network. The connected devices can be located at

geographically distributed locations. The connected devices can produce and share huge

amount of data that is stored and process at a centralized location such as cloud.

IoT

Dynamic changes

Enormous scale

Safety

Connecti_vity

Heteroge_neity

Things-related services

Interconn_ectivity

Page 21: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

22

Things-related services: These services are provided within the boundaries of things such as

privacy and consistency between physical things and their associated virtual things (Patel and

Patel, 2016).

Heterogeneity: IoT system consists of different type of connected devices each of these devices

has its own hardware and software and follow different protocol. These devices can interact

with each other through different network (Viriyasitavat, Anuphaptrirong and Hoonsopon,

2019).

Dynamic changes: The IoT environment is very dynamic it continuously adopts the changes.

The connected devices through IoT system can be distributed at geographical locations. The

state of devices change dynamically, e.g. connecting and disconnecting from the network.

Moreover, the number of connected and disconnected devices can change dynamically (Patel

and Patel, 2016).

Enormous scale: The huge amount of data is produced by the interconnected devices. The data

produced by these devices need to manage in a systematic way.

Safety: This is the important aspect of IoT. The personal data and our physical well-being need

to be protected. Similarly, the networks and the data moving across the network needs to be

secure in all means.

Connectivity: It enables a network accessibility and compatibility. Accessibility is getting on

a network while compatibility provides the ability to consume and produce data (Patel and

Patel, 2016).

2.2. IoT Architecture IoT devices consists of multiple devices like sensors, actuators, processors, and transceivers.

IoT consist of multiple technologies that work together. Sensors and actuators are devices,

which are used to interact with the physical environment. The data collected by the sensors has

to be stored and processed intelligently in order to derive useful inferences from it (Sethi and

Sarangi, 2017). The communication between IoT devices is wireless because these devices are

Page 22: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

23

located at geographically location. The communication through wireless connection always

have high rate of risk of unreliability and distortion.

2.2.1. Three layers architecure The IoT architecture consists of three or five layers (Sethi and Sarangi, 2017). Three-layer

architecture is considered the most basic architecture.

Figure 2-2: Three layers architecture of IoT

The Figure 2-2 shows the three-layer architecture of IoT. Above mentioned layer architecture

is described as follows:

(i) The perception layer is the physical layer: this layer has sensors for sensing and gathering

information about the environment. This layer identifies all the devices which are connected in

the physical environment.

(ii) The network layer this layer is responsible for connecting to other smart things, network

devices, and servers. This layer also used for transmitting and processing data among

connected devices.

(iii) The application layer this layer is responsible for delivering application specific services

to the user. This layer defines various applications where the IoT can be deployed e.g. smart

homes, smart cities, and smart health.

Application layer

Network layer

Perception layer/ sensing layer

Page 23: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

24

2.2.2. Five layers architecture

The five layers architecture is the most detailed description of IoT architecture. Figure 6 shows

the five layers IoT.

Figure 2-3: Five layers architecture of IoT

Five-layer architecture is the provide the detail description of IoT layer whereas the three-layer

architecture defines the main idea. The figure 2-3 explain the five-layer architecture, business

layer, processing layer and transport layer added for the detail description of the IoT

architecture. These layers are explained below:

(i) The transport layer: This layer used to transport data form the from the perception layer to

the processing layer and vice versa through networks such as wireless, 3G, Local area network

(LAN), Bluetooth, RFID, and Near filed communication (NFC).

(ii) The processing layer: this layer is also considered as middleware layer. It stores, analyses,

and processes data that comes from the transport layer. This layer is also responsible to provide

different services to the lower layers. Different technologies such as databases, cloud

computing, and big data processing modules are also deployed in this layer.

(iii) The business layer: this layer manages the entire IoT system it manages all the

applications, business and profit models, and user’s privacy.

Business layer

Application layer

Middleware layer

Network layer

Perception layer

Page 24: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

25

3. Methodology This chapter contains a comprehensive discussion about the methodology used to for this

thesis. This thesis follows the process of systematic literature review explained by Okoli and

Schabram (2010) in their paper titles as “A Guide to Conducting a Systematic Literature

Review of Information Systems Research”.

3.1.Research methodology The knowledge of the topic under discussion is essential to answer the research questions (as

proposed in chapter 1). It means, that prior knowledge of the project is important because this

would help to supplement the understanding about the topic. In order to answer the research

questions about IoT and its security I would review the research which already had been done

to get the detail knowledge of the topic and to avoid performing similar research again. This is

good approach as it will help to understand the different researches and get knowledge. This

knowledge will help me to review the literature systematically. It will also help me to answer

all the research questions.

3.2.Systematic literature review using qualitative approach A systematic literature review is used to find and review relevant literature in field of study

through a highly rigorous and systematic process. The process of systematic literature review

covers the content found in the literature alongside the methods used to find the literature, what

search strategies used and how and from where the literature searched. A systematic literature

review also focuses on the criteria used to evaluate the literature found for the review. Like

any literature review, a systematic literature review gives a broad understanding of topic area,

to show what work has already been done in the chosen area and what research methods are

being used. The literature review also helps to find research gap and direct your research.

There are three reasons of systematic literature review: clarity, validity and auditability. Clarity

focused on research questions and explicit search strategies which help to clarify considerations

of scope and terminology, validity focused on a valid research output, there should be a clear

reasoning behind the inclusion of particular papers and theories and auditability is used keep

the accurate results of systematic strategies. Accurate record keeping of search strategies will

allow others to verify results.

Page 25: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

26

3.2.1. Systematic Literature review Systematic literature review provides theoretical background for the research; learning the

basics of research on a topic of interest; or answering practical questions by understanding

what existing research has to say on the matter. A systematic literature review must be

systematic by following a methodological approach, it also explain the procedures by which it

was conducted, it is comprehensive and includes all the relevant material, and reproducible by

others who would follow the same approach in reviewing the topic (Okoli and Schabram,

2010). A systematic literature review is a method to identify, evaluate and synthesize the

existing literature and also recorded work produced by researchers, scholars and practitioners

(Fink, 2005).

3.3.Research process A literature review is a discussion of the information relevant to the specified field of research.

The good quality systematic literature review consists of various steps, each of which is

required for a systematic literature review. All the steps are important for any kind of literature

review; however, for a review to be scientifically rigorous, all of the steps are essential (Okoli

and Schabram, 2010). Figure 3-1 describe the steps involved in the systematic literature review.

The literature review according to Rowley and Slack (2004) is a process to i) evaluate

information sources ii) searching and locating information resources iii) developing conceptual

frameworks and mind mapping iv) writing the literature review. A literature review is the study

of the existing literature in a subject field; the objective of the literature review is to summarize

the state of the art in that subject field. The literature review makes it possible to identify areas

in which further research would be beneficial.

Page 26: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

27

Figure 3-1 Systematic literature review

This research follows a systematic literature review process described by (Okoli and Schabram,

2010). Figure 3-1 presents all the stages and activities involved in this systematic literature

review research.

3.3.1. Purpose of the literature review This is the first step of the review the researcher should clearly define the purpose and intended

goal of the review (Okoli and Schabram, 2010). Based on the guidelines provided by the Okoli

and Schabram (2010) this systematic literature review divided into into three phases: planning,

conducting, and reporting the review. Based on the guidelines, this section details the research

questions, the performed research steps, and the protocol of the literature review. This

Purpose of the literature review

Searching the literature

Data extraction

Qualitative Quality appraisal

Qualitative

Planning

Selection

Extraction

Conducting review

Systematic literature review

Execution

Synthesis of the literature

Page 27: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

28

systematic literature review is based on the research questions i) What are IoT security issues

in the layered architecture? ii) How the IoT security is being implemented in the layered

architecture and iii) How the technology can be improved for the IoT future growth? This thesis

is organized systematically on the basis of guidelines provided by (Okoli and Schabram, 2010)

to answers the research questions.

The literature review guides always begin with an explanation and justification for conducting

literature reviews, most importantly the researcher must be sure and clear about conducting the

systematic literature review. The first step of conducting a literature review is to clearly define

the purpose of the review to (Okoli and Schabram, 2010). This is not a part of the active

procedure rather it is a consideration of the technique to be embarked upon.

3.3.2. Searching the literature The next phase of the systematic literature review is the planning this phase started once the

purpose of the literature review and the research questions have been formulated. This phase

defines a protocol of inclusion and exclusion of the researches within the scope of this thesis

to answer the questions (Okoli and Schabram, 2010). Currently, open access databases such as

Google Scholar and the Directory of Open Access Journals and specific subject databases such

as Scopus, IEEE Xplore and the Uppsala university library offer electronic access to most

published literature.

A lot of articles were reviewed and selected on the basis of the defined keywords i.e. IoT, IoT

security, IoT future aspects etc. These articles were searched from online database such as

Google scholars, IEEE, and Uppsala university online database. Firstly, the initial screening

was performed on the set of articles selected for the literature review. The initial screening was

conducted based on the abstract. Finally, those articles were selected which provide relevant

information to answer the research questions.

For example, Internet of Things-IOT: Definition, Characteristics, Architecture, Enabling

Technologies, Application & Future Challenges, written by (Patel and Patel, 2016) available

at the Research gate. This paper was selected for the research review because it provides the

required information for my thesis work. The keywords of this articles are IoT definition,

Characteristics of IoT, future challenges, architecture and IoT functional view.

Page 28: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

29

Another example IoT Elements, Layered Architectures and Security Issues: A Comprehensive

Survey. Sensors, 18(9), p.2796 written by (Burhan, Rehman, Khan and Kim, 2018) available

at the Research gate. These papers were selected on the base of its keywords (Internet of

Things (IoT); layered architectures; security; privacy; security attacks;protection methods;

secure architecture).

Firstly, all the articles used for this literature review were selected on the base of their keywords

(IoT, IoT layer architecture, IoT security, IoT future aspects, years of selections ). Secondly,

articles were selected according to the information required to answer the research questions.

Finally, selected articles were downloaded if the full version of the article is available otherwise

it was excluded. Furthermore, I define an inclusion and exclusion criteria of the articles to be

used for this literature review. The define criteria is defined in the table below.

Table 3-1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Type Inclusion criteria

Topic Selected literature must be relevant to the topic and abstract to answer the research questions.

Publication time Selected articles for the review must be published between 2010 to

2020.

Reliability The selected articles must be from reliable sources (conferences, workshops etc.).

Language Language of the selected articles must be English

Journals/Articles The article used in the literature review searched from different online sources i.e. google scholar, IEEE, Uppsala university library online database.

Books Books were used for reference to understand the topic in detail.

The table 3-1 explains the inclusion criteria of the research article for the literature review. All

the steps were considered equally important when selecting the article for the literature review.

If any of the topic which is not relevant to the defined criteria in the table 3-2 was excluded

from the review. i) Topic: search the literature from the online source, article/journals, that is

relevant to the topic, and can also answer the research questions. ii) Publication time: of the

searched articles was between 2010-2020, it was required to search the enough data and select

Page 29: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

30

the latest literature available. iii) Reliability: the searched literature was selected from the

reliable source like google scholars, IEEE and www.ub.uu.se etc. iv) Language selection of the

literature was only English; it was impossible for me to understand the literature available in

any other language. v) Journals/Articles: only articles and journals were searched because they

provide most recent information and vi) Books: were used to understand the topic in detail.

Figure 3-2 Flow chart of inclusion and exclusion criteria

Search on the base of keyword Identify relevant sources

Search the article

Relevant to abstract?

Select the article

Excluded

Select the article

No

No

No

Excluded

Download the article

Select the article

Excluded

Excluded

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Excluded

Publication Time

Reliable source

Full article

No

Lang. is Eng.

Select the article

Yes

No

Page 30: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

31

The figure 3-2 explain the inclusion criteria in the form of flow chart. If any of the downloaded

article is not relevant to the inclusion criteria explained in the table 3-1 was excluded from the

review.

3.3.3. Data extraction strategy The next step after defining the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the articles is to define data

extraction strategy from the included articles. Most of the available guides for literature review

do not discuss data extraction at all but take it for granted that after a certain screening process,

extraction will happen before synthesis can be completed (Okoli and Schabram,2010). This

strategy was defined carefully because the final results of this literature review are based on

this extracted data. The data was systematically taken from each article to answer the research

questions.

Finally, having gone through all the previous stages and reading the articles in detail several

time, I was able to extract the data required for the review. The extraction process consists of

i) aims and finding ii) methods iii) outcome iv) results and v) publication year, each step

focused on particular kind of data, to provide effective answers to the review of the literature

(Nazrul Islam, 2013).

Figure 3-3 Data extraction strategy

Data Extraction

Results

Aims and finding

Methods

Publication year

Outcome

Relevant to topic

Type of finding

Quality appraisal

Type of the paper

Research claim

Page 31: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

32

The data extraction strategy is based on the steps mentioned in the figure 3-3. Each of these

steps is focused on specified type of data. The literature for this thesis work was selected by

following different stages and keywords (IoT, IoT layer architecture, IoT security, IoT future

aspects, years of selections).

Table 3-2 Number of selected papers

Source Paper searched

Papers after stage 1

Papers after stage 2

Papers after stage 3

Google Scholar 17100 630 60 45

IEEExplore.ieee.org 35 25 20 13 https://www.ub.uu.se/ 954 45 25 12 Sum 18089 690 105 70

The table 3-2 discuss the number of papers download for this research work. The total number

of selected papers for this research is also mentioned in the table. The final selection of the

papers based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and keeping in the view the quality

appraisal of selected papers discussed in the next section.

(i) Aims and findings: that retrieved data related to the abstract of research topic stating the

research aims and its findings, what are the outcome of research. (ii) Method: that retrieved

data related to the research methods employed in this research. The initial focus of this step is

to find the type of the article. The article should be research based so that this review

investigates the methods that was employed to make research claim. (iii) Outcome validation:

that retrieved data related to the validation of research outcome. This step focused on a paper’s

outcome validation, that the paper validated its research outcome or not. If the paper’s outcome

is validated, then it requires to validate its methods used to conduct these outcomes. (iv) Results

obtained: that investigated the reviewed papers to find that the results obtained in the paper are

according to the research topic and specified goals in the abstract. (v) Publication: year that

extracted the data related to the year of publication for the selected papers. Publication year is

important because IoT is a relevant new filed, updates about this are coming overnights. That’s

why, most recent papers were selected for this review.

Page 32: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

33

3.3.4. Quality appraisal The quality of selected articles is important to consider. All the selected articles are not of the

same quality it is required to measure the quality of the article based on some standards. The

standard of quality is measured based on the assessments defined in the table 3-3.

Table 3-3 Quality appraisal criteria

Level Methodology

quality

Methodology

relevance

Topic relevance

Excellent Excellent research Research questions

clearly stated

Study is close to the

review questions

Good Research design

clearly stated with

evidence of sensible

decisions taken to

provide valid and

reliable

Research questions

are explicit or can be

deducted from text.

Study is broadly in

line with one of the

key review

questions and

provide useful

evidence

Satisfactory It is implicit and

used to collect useful

data

RQs implicit but

appear to be broadly

matched by research

design and finding

At least some part of

the literature is

relevant to one of

the review

questions.

Inadequate Research design not

stated and contains

flaws

RQs not stated or not

matched by design

Study does not

address key

questions

3.3.5. Synthesis of the literature Once all the articles have been selected according to the criteria specified in the previous

sections, the next step is to combine them in order to make comprehensive sense out of a large

number of studies. Synthesis is the process to aggregate, discuss organize and compare. After

the completion of this stage polished synthesis of information should be available, and the

writing the literature step should be a straightforward process (Okoli and Schabram, 2010).

Page 33: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

34

Figure 3-4 Synthesis of literature

Figure 3-4 explains the process to synthesize the selected literature i) Gather literature that

addresses your research questions ii) Review literature and take notes: describe, summarize,

analyze, and identify key concepts iii) Synthesize literature: compare & contrast, critically

evaluate, interpret, so that you can draw conclusion (Research Guides: The Literature Review:

A Research Journey: Synthesize, 2020).

3.3.6. Conducting the review

The final step of literature review is reporting the finding and writing the review. This is the

most complicated step of writing the literature review (Okoli and Schabram, 2010). If all the

previous steps are followed then whole process of literature review will went systematically

(Kitchenham, 2004). The most important step of conducting the review is that all the steps

must be documented with sufficient detail that these results must be reproducible for the future

researchers.

Gather literature

Review literature and take notes

Synthesize literature: critically evaluation

Page 34: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

35

Figure 3-5: Systematic review flowchart

After completion of all the previous steps the final step is conduct the review. Figure 3-5

describe the process of selection of article/journals for conducting the review. The multiple

articles/journals were selected from different sources such as Uppsala university library online

database, IEEE, google scholars. All the relevant documents were selected based on the

inclusion criteria as described in the table 3-2. Firstly, all the selected literature was mapped

with the research questions as the final outcome of the literature review is to answer these

questions. Secondly, selected literature passes the quality appraisal as discussed in the section

3.2.4. Finally, the review conducted to answer the research questions.

Scoping the review Inclusion criteria

Searching the literature

Article meets the inclusion criteria?

Relevant to research questions

Mapping to research questions

Quality appraisal

Conducting review

Excluded

Yes

No

Page 35: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

36

4. Results This chapter will explains the results according to the research questions defined in the section

1.5.

4.1. IoT security The IoT environment is growing rapidly and it has huge impact on social life and business

environment. The connected devices through this environment generates huge amount of data.

According to Sahinaslan (2019) The data exchanged over the network will be greater than 44

zettabytes (ZB) by 2020. Similarly, by 2025 every connected person in the world (about 75%

of the total population at that time) will have a digital data engagement over 4,900 times per

day, about once every 18 seconds. The IoT devices will generate over 90 ZB of data in 2025.

This rapid growth brings lot of risks and threats.

The various application domains like smart homes, smart industries, smart cars and etc are the

examples of IoT. If a user wants to receive any kind of service from IoT he needs to connect

various kind of networks, which can be serous security and privacy risk. The main causes of

these attacks are hardware and software vulnerabilities. Security is mandatory to overcome

these hardware and software vulnerabilities. Some existing solutions of these vulnerabilities

are very expensive. Hence, lightweight and well scaled protocols are needed with low cost.

4.1.1. IoT security vs traditional IT security Alaba, Othman, Hashem and Alotaibi (2017) explains that there are several differences

between IoT and conventional wireless networks in terms of dealing with security and privacy.

Frustaci, Pace, Aloi and Fortino (2018) explains That the devices in the IoT system has limited

hardware and software resources (i.e., sensor or RFID), whereas traditional IT is mostly based

on resources rich devices. So, IoT devices only use lightweight algorithms to find a right

balance between higher security and lower capabilities. Hassija et al. (2019) explains that

without a trusted IoT ecosystem, IoT applications may lose all their potential along with the

security issues faced generally by the Internet, cellular networks, and WSNs, alongside these

issues IoT has its own security challenges such as privacy issues, authentication issues,

management issues, information storage and so on.

Page 36: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

37

Table 4.1 IoT security vs Traditional IT security

Traditional IT security IoT security

Add-on Security Built in Security

Complex algorithms Lightweight algorithms

User control Privacy issues because IoT collect

information automatically

Small technological heterogeneity Large technological heterogeneity

Many security guards Few security guards

IT devices are located in closed

environments

IoT devices are located in open

environments.

The difference between IoT security and traditional IT security are discussed in the table 4.1.

The traditional security architecture is designed based on the user perspective that is not

applicable for communication among devices. The security issues in both networks could be

same but to handle those issues different techniques and approaches are used (Alaba, Othman,

Hashem and Alotaibi, 2017).

4.1.2. IoT vulnerabilities IoT is the network of large number of devices and they are also at the high security risks.

Bertino and Islam (2017) explains that IoT systems are higher security risks for several reasons

i) these systems don’t have well defined perimeters ii) these systems are highly heterogeneous

with respect to communication medium and protocols iii) smart phone applications require

permissions for installations and other user interactions but in IoT devices these permissions

might not possible due to large number of devices etc. Li Tryfonas and Li (2016) explains the

data security and privacy issues are very important, but the risks associated with the IoT will

reach new levels due to this communication and autonomous decision making begin to embed

complexity, security loopholes, and potential vulnerability. Similarly, Radoglou Grammatikis,

Sarigiannidis and Moscholios (2019) explains that the interconnections and the similarity of

devices and technologies in the IoT generate possible cyber-physical security vulnerabilities

Page 37: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

38

that can be exploited by various cyber attackers. Table 4.2 explains the common vulnerabilities

of IoT.

Table 4.2: Common Vulnerabilities of IoT

Security Concerns Example

Insecure web interface Inability to change default password and username,

exposed credential, weak passwords, lack of robust

password recovery etc.

Insufficient

authentication/authorization

Privilege escalation (design flaw or configuration error in

an application or operating system)

Insecure network services DoS, buffer overflow, fuzzing attacks etc.

Lack data encryption and

verification

Transmission of unencrypted data and credential

Privacy concerns Collection of unnecessary user data; exposed personal data

and insufficient controls on who has access to user data

Insecure cloud interface Account enumeration, no account lockout, credentials

exposed in network traffic

Insecure mobile interface Insufficient authentication, lack of transport encryption

and account enumeration

Insecure security configuration Weak password policies, no security logging and lack of

data encryption option

Insecure software/firmware Lack of secure update mechanism, update files not verified

before upload

Poor physical security Device easy of disassemble, access to software via USB

ports, removable storage media

In order to achieve trust among the systems, an important part is to secure them. The approach

to securing these systems relies on threat and risk analyses. The solutions of these risks consist

of many different kinds of security architectures. The process of securing IoT environments is

a difficult task since there will be many different scenarios and each scenario consists of

different kind of devices. Each security solution looks different from the other since these

systems may contain entities which are constrained in different ways.

Page 38: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

39

Similarly, one of the characteristics of IoT is its expected “enormous scale” as there will be

many interconnected devices. The security analysis or a threat and risk analysis will not only

include software security because if a system is de-parameterised and devices are outside the

perimeter of a secure environment, then physical threats become more relevant. A standardised

level of security has to be found which provides required safety without affecting the

functionality too much.

4.2. IoT Security Issues The IoT is a layer architecture, each of these layers has its own functionalities and use different

technologies to perform their actions. The rapid increase of IoT devices is also increasing the

security risks. This section discusses possible security threats in IoT layers, Confidentiality,

Integrity, Availability, Authentication, Data Freshness and Self- Organization are the key

feature to secure the IoT technologies (Cerullo et al., 2018).

The IoT is a layered architecture and each layer has its own security attacks. A lot of security

challenges and requirements which need to be addressed. The recent research in IoT is mainly

on authentication and access control protocols, but the rapid advancement of technology it is

important to incorporate new networking protocols like IPv6 and 5G to achieve the future IoT

security requirements.

4.2.1. Perception layer/sensing layer threats The information gathering is the main operation of the perception layer. This layer uses sensors,

RFIDs, barcode etc. to gather information. The attacker can attack on its sensor node due to its

wireless nature (Vashi et al., 2017). All type of sensors, such as RFID, NFC, sensor nodes are

the main technologies of perception layer. This layer is classified into two section namely, the

perception node (sensors, controllers etc.) and the perception networks that interconnects the

network layer (Alaba, Othman, Hashem and Alotaibi, 2017).

Page 39: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

40

Table 4.3 Perception layer types of attacks

Attack Countermeasure

Node capture Attacks Authentication, encryptions

Malicious code Injection attack Continuously observe the behavior of

running system.

False data injection attack Authentication

Tampering Prevent sensor physical damage

Eavesdropping and interface attacks Encryption techniques, Access controls,

access restriction etc.

Jamming Use of low transmission power, channel

surfing etc.

Node capture attacks: IoT applications are the combination of several low power nodes. These

nodes are vulnerable to a variety of attack. The attacker can capture the node and get all the

information and data (Hassija et al., 2019), (Yousuf, Mahmoud, Aloul and Zualkernan, 2015).

Malicious code Injection attack: In this type of attack the attacker can inject some malicious

code in the memory of the node. By injecting this type of code, the attacker may force the node

to perform some unintended functions (Vashi et al., 2017), (Li, S et al., 2016), (Hassija et al.,

2019).

False Data injection attack: Once the attacker captures the node, he can inject erroneous data

onto the IoT system. This leads the false results and they can use this method to cause a DoS

attack (Hassija et al., 2019).

Tampering: The attacker can get the physical access of the of sensors. By using this method,

the attacker can sensitive information like encryption/decryption keys (Cerullo et al., 2018).

Eavesdropping and interference: IoT application consist of various nodes deployed in the

open environment, this exposed the IoT applications to eavesdropper. The attacker may capture

the date during the different phase (Vashi et al., 2017) (Cerullo et al., 2018).

Page 40: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

41

Jamming: This attack disturbs the radio channel, the attacker sends useless information to

corrupt or lost the message (Cerullo et al., 2018). This kind of attack can be divided into four

categories: constant jamming, deceptive jamming, random jamming and reactive jamming

(Radoglou et al., 2019).

4.2.2. Network layer/transportation layer It is also called transportation layer, this layer relay on the information collected by the

perception layer (Vashi et al., 2017). This layer provides network transmission and information

security and spread information in the perception layer, that is data transmission and storage

awareness. The network layer includes mobile devices, cloud computing, and the Internet

(Alaba, Othman, Hashem and Alotaibi, 2017). This layer provides an interaction between

application and service. It is important to design an effective security strategy to protect against

attacks (Li, S et al., 2016).

Table 4.4 Network layer attacks

Attack Countermeasure Phishing site attack Do not open unknow emails

Access Attack/Man-in-the-Middle attack Encryption method between client and server,

identification and authentication techniques.

DoS attack Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and an Intrusion

Protection Systems (IPS)

Sybil attack Unique shared key between the node and the base

station

Routing attacks/sinkhole attack Continuous monitoring the nodes.

Hello Flood attack Authentication of neighbor nodes through an identity

verification protocol.

Phishing site attack: In this type of attack the attacker tries to capture the several IoT devices

by putting the minimal efforts. The attacker tries to capture the username and password of one

person which makes the whole IoT system vulnerable to cyberattack (Hassija et al., 2019).

Access attack: In this attack an unauthorized person gets the access of the IoT network. The

attacker can stay in the network for longer period of time undetected. The purpose of this type

Page 41: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

42

of attack is to collect the valuable information instead of damaging the network (Hassija et al.,

2019).

DoS attack: In this attach the network is flooded with a useless traffic by an attacker, resulting

in a resource exhaustion of the targeted system and network unavailable to the user (Vashi et

al., 2017) (Li, S et al., 2016). Many IoT devices are not strongly configured, and thus become

and easy target of this attack (Hassija et al., 2019).

Sybil attack: In the sybil attack, the malicious nodes can create multiple identities in order to

mislead other nodes. The purpose of the attacker, in this case, is to take control different areas

of the network, without using any physical node (Radoglou et al., 2019) (Cerullo et al., 2018).

Routing attacks/sinkhole attack: In this kind of attack malicious node try to redirect the

routing path and attract the nodes to route traffic through this node. (Radoglou et al., 2019)

(Cerullo et al., 2018) (Hassija et al., 2019).

Hello flood attacks: A node utilized HELLO message to join a network. Hello Flood attack

consists in forwarding of a large amount of this specific message in order to flood the network

and thus avoid the exchange of other types of message. (Cerullo et al., 2018) (Radoglou et al.,

2019).

4.2.3. Middleware layer The middleware layer in IoT is to create an interface between the network layer and the

application layer. This layer also provides powerful computing and storage capabilities.

Middleware layer includes device discovery and management, Big data analytics, Security etc.

Middleware layer provides a reliable and robust IoT interface, it is also open to various attacks

(Hassija et al., 2019). Moreover, this layer has capability to retrieve, process, compute

information, and then automatically decide based on the computational results middleware

layer has two essential functions i.e. service management and store the lower layer information

into the database (Vashi et al., 2017).

Page 42: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

43

Table 4.5 Middleware layer attacks

Attack Countermeasure

Flooding attack in cloud User authentication

De-synchronization Authenticate each forward packet

SQL injection attack Validate user input, encryption, limited

rights

Man-in-the-Middle attack Encryption method between client and

server, identification and authentication

techniques.

Flooding attack in cloud: This attack has a big impact on cloud system by increasing the

load on the cloud services. This attack works same as the DoS in the cloud and affect the

quality of service (QoS). The attacker continuously sends multiple request to a service

(Hassija et al., 2019) (Cerullo et al., 2018).

SQL Injection Attack: In such attacks, attacker can embed malicious SQL statements in a

program. The attacker can obtain private data of any user and can even alter record in the

database (Hassija et al., 2019).

De-Synchronization: An attacker forwards some fake sequence number for de-synchronizing

the endpoints and producing the data retransmission (Cerullo et al., 2018).

Man-in-the-Middle attack: This is the form of eavesdropping attack in which the target of

attack is the communication channel. The unauthorized party can monitor the communication

between two parties without identification (Vashi et al., 2017).

4.2.4. Application layer The Application is the uppermost layer and it is visible to end user. Applications such as, smart

grid, smart city, healthcare system, and intelligent transportation protocols constitute this layer

(Alaba, Othman, Hashem and Alotaibi, 2017). This layer has specific security issues which

are not present in other layers such as data theft and privacy issues. Most IoT applications also

Page 43: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

44

consist of sub-layers in between network and application layer, usually termed as an application

support layer or middleware layer. (Hassija et al., 2019).

Table 4.6 Application layer attacks

Attack Countermeasure

Data theft attacks Data encryption, user and network

authentications etc.

Data corruption Anti-virus, firewalls, spy-ware etc.

Sniffing attacks Security protocols

DOS attacks Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and an

Intrusion Protection Systems (IPS)

Malicious code injection attacks Continuously observe the behavior of

running system.

Reprogram attacks Protect programming process

Data thefts: IoT applications deals with lot of data which is critical and private. The data in

transit is more vulnerable than the data at rest. The users always reluctant to transmit their

private data on the IoT system (Hassija et al., 2019).

Data corruption: Malicious codes such as viruses, spy-ware, worms etc. are the possible

attacks in this layer. The malicious codes can alter the data collected by the sensors, the receiver

will receive the wrong data and perform wrong actions (Cerullo et al., 2018).

Sniffing attacks: The attackers may use sniffer application to monitor the network traffic in

IoT application. This may allow the attackers to gain access to confidential user data.

Denial-of-Service attack: These type of attacks stops the authenticate users to use the IoT

application by artificially making the servers or networks too busy to respond.

Malicious code injection attacks: Attackers can inject the malicious code in a script because

this is the simplest way to break the security. Due to these attacks the attackers can hijack an

IoT account and paralyze the IoT system.

Page 44: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

45

Reprogram Attacks: If the programming process is not protected, then the attackers can try to

reprogram the IoT object remotely. This could lead hijacking the IoT network.

4.3. Solution of IoT layers threats The previous section discusses security vulnerabilities in all the layers of IoT. This section will

discuss the countermeasures against the threats discussed before.

4.3.1. Perception layer The threat at the perception layer, such as node capture, malicious code attacks, tampering,

jamming etc. discussed in the previous section. The threats at the perception layer addressed

the natural disasters, then environmental threats, the human-caused physical threats and the

jamming attacks (Radoglou et al., 2019). Gou, Yan, Liu and Li (2013) explains the sensor

nodes in the perception layer of IoT are usually in unattended occasions, vulnerable and even

some of the equipment will be stolen, we can furnish sensor nodes continuously and replace

damaged nodes in the key position, so that the network can self-heal to protect the physical

security of the IoT.

On the other hand, it is required only authenticated user and devices can assess the system, if

physical threats are due to human beings. Therefore, user authentication systems, physical

access control mechanisms, and a trust framework are required for data security. Encryption is

used to prevent the data from tempering, maintain confidentiality and data integrity. Encryption

can be achieved by two ways i) node to node and ii) end to end encryption (Vashi et al., 2017).

4.3.2. Network layer The threat at the networks layer, such as phishing site attacks, DoS attack, sinkhole attack etc.

discussed in the previous section needs to be addressed to achieve security at this layer. To

protect against unauthorized access in the network layer, authentication mechanisms can be

used. When a large number of sensory data or unsafe intrusion data come from the perception

layer, filtering and detection mechanism can be used to ensure data security (Gou, Yan, Liu

and Li, 2013). In order to make the confidentiality, integrity, availability immune in network

layer by node to node encryption can be used at this layer (Vashi et al., 2017). Different

Page 45: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

46

mechanisms like end-to-end authentication, end-to-end key negotiation, key management

mechanisms and intrusion detection mechanisms can be used to defend against the attacks. The

node should need to monitor continuously and also identify the neighbouring nodes with

identification verification protocol.

4.3.3. Middleware layer The threat at the networks layer, such as Man-in-the-Middle, SQL injection, flooding attack in

cloud etc. discussed in the previous section needs to be addressed to achieve security at this

layer. In this layer user authentication and also required to authenticate each packet which is

forwarded. The data from client to server needs to encrypt, encryption methods needs to

implement. Similarly, all the input from the user needs to verify and each user must have

limited right to use the data.

4.3.4. Application layer The threat at the networks layer, such as data theft attacks, data corruption, sniffing attack etc.

discussed in the previous section needs to be addressed to achieve security at this layer.

Data security, access management, security management and modern cryptographic algorithms

can be used to encrypt the database. Access management can be used to prevent unauthorized

users to use and access the database, administrative privileges can be assigned to secure

database (Gou, Yan, Liu and Li, 2013). End to end encryption is performed on the application

layer. Encryption-decryption is performed at sender-receiver end only. What the sender

encrypts is decrypted at the receiving end only. Data encryption is an important mean of

securing data. The role of encryption is to prevent information from being deciphered when it

is intercepted by attackers (Vashi et al., 2017).

4.4. IoT future In the future, IoT network needs new identification, wireless, software and hardware

technologies to solve the recent challenges. It is suggested that to define new standards for

heterogeneous devices, implementation of key management and identify establishment system

and trust management hubs.

Page 46: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

47

IoT security revolve around the classification of information. A balance is needed between the

value of information and security capabilities of a device. The security of central system e.g.

server is not challenging because there are defined standards are available. The challenge is to

secure the sub-system e.g. devices, because the limit of subsystems will restrict the security

capabilities. The available standards must become more lightweight in order to adapt to these

new security challenges concerning constrained devices.

4.4.1. IoT future research Patel and Patel (2016) defines that the introduction of new technologies like

communications sensors, smart phones, embedded systems, cloud networking, network

virtualization and software are becoming essential to permit physical devices to work in

changing environments and remain connected all the time. Abomhara and Koien (2014) in

their paper discuss about the safety of the IoT and future research directions as It has been

identified that the protection of user data and privacy is one among the key challenges

within the Internet of Things. It is stated that lack of confidence regarding privacy leads

to decreased adoption among users and is therefore one among the driving factors within

the success of IoT.

Page 47: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

48

Table 4.7: IoT Future development and research (adapted from Patel and Patel, 2016)

4.4.2. Hardware devices

A typical IoT application consists of multiple connected devices, technologies, domains, and

geographies. If any of the device, technology or their combination is left weak, then that may

be the cause of a security threat for the entire application. These connected devices are

considered the strongest as the weakest part of IoT network. The most important characteristics

of IoT is the number of devices and means of communication. Different variations such as

processor speed, memory, protocols, and application types are much bigger with IoT than

traditional desktops, laptops or smartphones (Kolias et al., 2016).

According to Hassija et al. (2019) a large number of IoT devices being deployed around the

world which generates a large amount of the data. The generated data could also contain lot of

private information and that can be another cause of threat.

Technology Future Development

Hardware Devices • Nanotechnology devices • Small size of chipsets • Low power circuits

Sensor • Small sensors • Smart sensors • Low power sensors

Communication technology • Wide spectrum and spectrum aware protocols • Unified protocol over wide spectrum • Multifunctional reconfigurable chips

Network technology • Self-learning networks • Self-repairing networks • IPv6- scalability

Software and algorithms • Goal oriented software • Distributed software, Problem solving

Data and signal processing technology • IoT data analysis • data processing • cognitive processing and optimization • intelligent data visualization

Discovery and search engine

technologies • Automatic rote tagging • On demand service

Security and privacy technologies • Privacy and privacy policies • Security and privacy profiles • Privacy aware data processing

Page 48: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

49

IoT devices and applications are growing continuously, an approach needs to be designed to

handle the cost and capacity constraints. Hassija et al. (2019) suggest that the devices should

be designed so that they can communicate with each other automatically and securely. (Patel

and Patel, 2016) suggest that to secure the hardware devices it is necessary to use

Nanotechnology, design low power circuits and reduce the size of chipsets.

4.4.3. Sensor The sensors are the essential components of IoT communication, these are used to collect the

data from environment. IoT sensors are small in size, have low cost and consume less power.

Sethi and Sarangi (2017) explains that design of lightweight sensors is the first requirement for

the IoT system, but we don’t have enough choice regarding the sensors. On the other hand, we

have lot of choice regarding the processing and networking capabilities that ae bundled along

with the sensors. (Patel and Patel, 2016) states that the sensors should be smaller and consume

less power and also should be more intelligent.

Figure 4.1 IoT future technology development (Gubbi, Buyya, Marusic and Palaniswami, 2013)

Page 49: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

50

4.4.4. Communication technology In IoT nodes, power is the most important issue. The power required to transmit and receive

message. The most important factor to be consider are the distance between the sender and

receiver, the nature of obstacles, signal distortion, government regulations. The choice of the

network is based on these factors (Sethi and Sarangi, 2017).

The recent research describes that the future 5G mobile networks have to serve massive

deployment of IoT with billions of connected objects and sensors that will be a global

representation of the real world. Similarly, to support critical IoT use cases, whichl require

real-time responses and automation across different field of operations including vehicle-to-

infrastructure (V2I), high speed motion, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and as well as process

control system (Akpakwu, Silva, Hancke and Abu-Mahfouz, 2018).

The communication technologies need to use wide spectrum and spectrum aware protocols,

and those protocols needs to be unified over wide spectrum (Patel and Patel, 2016).

4.4.5. Network technology An IoT network is a collection of interconnected devices that communicate with other devices

without the need for human involvement. The development of network technologies is a

continuous process. Lee, Bae and Kim (2017) discuss that the current devices are controlled

by the users. The IoT devices should not be configured manually by the user rather they should

be configured automatically. Furthermore, (Patel and Patel, 2016) and Lee, Bae and Kim

(2017) explains to overcome the problem of assigning IP (Internet Protocol) an effacing

addressing scheme is needed. The solution of this is using the IPv6 addressing scheme.

Likewise, all the network protocols including RFID, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee etc. are working

independently. A unifying architecture is needed that can support heterogeneity of networking

protocols. Most of the IoT application use cloud services for data storage and retrieval, to

overcome the risks of cloud service the data should be stored as ciphertext in the cloud.

Page 50: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

51

4.4.6. Software and algorithms The purpose of IoT is to design an autonomous system that needs minimum human

interventions. The use of artificial Intelligence (AI) based techniques or algorithms to secure

IoT network might be very useful (Hassija et al., 2019). Furthermore, the software and

algorithm for the IoT network should have the distributed intelligence (software that have the

ability to solve complex learning, planning and decision making) (Patel and Patel, 2016).

4.4.7. Data and signal processing technology Signal processing is an important component to expand the number of IoT technologies and

applications. Signal processing support new IoT services and make existing applications less

expensive and more practical. Signal processing technology consists of signal interference,

signal separation and signal filtering technology. But the difficulty is how to reduce the data

traffic within the network and the energy consumption during the data transmission, and reduce

network costs by the server (Liu and Zhou, 2012). The future requirements of IoT signal

processing technology is, it should provide complex IoT data analysis, data processing,

cognitive processing and optimization, intelligent data visualization (Patel and Patel, 2016).

4.4.8. Discovery and search engine technology

One of the important features of the IoT is the routing algorithms, which not only include the

routing for the sub-networks to the IoT but also the routing for the affiliated networks (Lee,

Bae and Kim, 2017). These routing algorithms should provide the facility of automatic route

tagging and identification management which will help the device to find the shortest and cost-

effective route to connect with other devices and network.

4.4.9. Security & Privacy technology The rapid increase of IoT devices and communication led to increase in security and privacy

issues. Security issues include malicious code attacks, inability to receive security patches,

hacking into smart meters, eavesdropping, sniffing attacks and DoS attacks etc. (Akpakwu,

Silva, Hancke and Abu-Mahfouz, 2018). The current devices of IoT have limited power and

computational resources. Therefore, a lightweight encryption algorithm and key management

protocols are needed for IoT devices (Lee, Bae and Kim, 2017). Cryptographic techniques can

Page 51: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

52

be used to protect, store and process data and keeping information as local as possible using

decentralized computing and key management (Abomhara and Koien, 2014).

The privacy issues are also very critical for the IoT environment. The private information of

any user can be leaked because anyone can connect with his device. The privacy issues can be

addressed in two ways. Firstly, the user’s device ignores the query that need the private data.

Secondly, construct the network architecture in which the use device returns only the requested

data without including protected data attacks (Akpakwu, Silva, Hancke and Abu-Mahfouz,

2018). User authentication devises, decentralized approaches for privacy are needed, privacy

policies, security and privacy profiles etc. (Patel and Patel, 2016).

Page 52: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

53

5. Conclusion The conclusions is drawn from literature review according to the research questions. This also

explain the future work that suggest development and implementation of a secured IoT

network.

The conclusion drawn from this is that IoT is a very interesting concept which creates many

new possibilities in form of services and inventions. IoT offers many applications to make our

lives easier like healthcare, transportation, and agriculture etc. IoT allows people, smart objects

to connect anytime, anywhere using any network and services.

The first question of this thesis work is “What are IoT security issues in the layered

architecture?”. The conclusion of the first question is that, IoT network open to various security

and privacy issues which needs to be considered at high priority. The ultimate goal of this thesis

was to introduce the reader about the IoT concept, particularly focus on the security and privacy

challenges involved in the IoT. The IoT faces various security and privacy issues due to rapid

increase of devices, people, vehicles connecting with the IoT network from anywhere and

anytime which causes security and privacy issues.

The second question of this thesis work is “How the IoT security is being implemented in the

layered architecture?”. The conclusion of the second research question is that multiple security

threats and attacks on the IoT layers are discussed in this thesis. The solution of these threats

and attacks like DoS, Man-in-the-middle, Tempering, jamming etc. also discussed to answer

the question.

The third question of this thesis work is “How the technology can be improved for the IoT

future growth?”. The conclusion of the last question is that the future growth of IoT network

depends on the development of the software and hardware technologies to solve the recent

challenges. It is also needed to define new standards for heterogeneous devices,

implementation of key management and identify establishment system and trust management

hubs.

Furthermore, this thesis explains various security threats attacks on all the layers of an IoT

architecture. It covered the security issues related to the perception layer, network layer,

Page 53: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

54

middleware layer and application layer. All the IoT security threats including DoS, Man-in-

the-middle, Tempering, jamming etc. are discussed in this thesis work. The IoT security has

also been discussed with some of the future research directions to enhance the security levels

of IoT. This literature review is expected to be a valuable resource to understand the security

issues at each layer of IoT.

Finally, a lot of research available in different areas of IoT but security and privacy is still

considered the weakest part of it. Different researchers have proposed many different kinds of

adaptations to lightweight protocols and authentication methods for IoT which makes it very

difficult to identify the best solution. Therefore, IoT requires structured guidelines in the form

of standardisation in order to interconnect all kinds of devices, protocols, applications, etc.

5.1. Limitations While working on this thesis work, I realized the time limitation was major concern to

understand and explain IoT, that is such an extensive concept. In the beginning, I have to learn

the concepts of information security because it is a new area of study for me which require

additional work in order to understand the concept and apply it to this thesis work.

5.2. IoT future work In this thesis work I tried to introduce IoT and discuss its security issues. However, still a great

deal of research is needed in order to make the IoT become a reality, few of the future research

recommendations are discussed below.

• The gateways between different layers in the IoT system need to be secured. The

attacker considers the gateways the easiest point to attack on an IoT system. End to end

encryption and it should be decrypted only at the intended destination.

• Data analysis in real-time is crucial for the success IoT applications. Various Machine

learning (ML) algorithms can be designed for this.

• Security and privacy issues should be considered very seriously because IoT deals with

huge amount of personal data. IoT environments must be protected from any kind of

malicious attack.

• IoT architecture standards must have well defined data model, interfaces and protocols.

Page 54: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

55

References: Abomhara, M. and Koien, G., 2014. Security and privacy in the Internet of Things: Current

status and open issues. 2014 International Conference on Privacy and Security in Mobile Systems (PRISMS).

Akpakwu, G., Silva, B., Hancke, G. and Abu-Mahfouz, A., 2018. A Survey on 5G Networks

for the Internet of Things: Communication Technologies and Challenges. IEEE Access, 6, pp.3619-3647.

Alaba, F., Othman, M., Hashem, I. and Alotaibi, F., 2017. Internet of Things security: A

survey. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 88, pp.10-28. Awad, Ali Ismail Fairhurst, Michael. (2018). Information Security - Foundations,

Technologies and Applications. (pp. 13-15). Institution of Engineering and Technology. Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpISFTA00A/information-security/information-security

Bertino, E. and Islam, N., 2017. Botnets and Internet of Things Security. Computer, 50(2),

pp.76-79. Burg, A., Chattopadhyay, A. and Lam, K., 2018. Wireless Communication and Security Issues

for Cyber–Physical Systems and the Internet-of-Things. Proceedings of the IEEE, 106(1), pp.38-60.

Burhan, M., Rehman, R., Khan, B. and Kim, B. (2018). IoT Elements, Layered Architectures

and Security Issues: A Comprehensive Survey. Sensors, 18(9), p.2796. Cerullo, Gianfranco & Mazzeo, Giovanni & Papale, Gaetano & Ragucci, Bruno & Sgaglione,

Luigi. (2018). IoT and Sensor Networks Security. Dorsemaine, B., Gaulier, J., Wary, J., Kheir, N. and Urien, P., 2015. Internet of Things: A

Definition & Taxonomy. 2015 9th International Conference on Next Generation Mobile Applications, Services and Technologies,.

Evans, D., 2012. [online] Cisco.com. Available at:

<https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/global/en_my/assets/ciscoinnovate/pdfs/IoE.pdf> [Accessed 21 May 2020].

Frustaci, M., Pace, P., Aloi, G. and Fortino, G., 2018. Evaluating Critical Security Issues of the

IoT World: Present and Future Challenges. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 5(4), pp.2483-2495.

Gou, Q., Yan, L., Liu, Y. and Li, Y., 2013. Construction and Strategies in IoT Security

System. 2013 IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications and IEEE Internet of Things and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing,.

Page 55: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

56

Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S. and Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future Generation Computer Systems, 29(7), pp.1645-1660.

Hassija, V., Chamola, V., Saxena, V., Jain, D., Goyal, P. and Sikdar, B., 2019. A Survey on

IoT Security: Application Areas, Security Threats, and Solution Architectures. IEEE Access, 7, pp.82721-82743.

i-SCOOP. 2020. What Is Iot? The Internet Of Things - Definitions And Facts. [online] Available at: <https://www.i-scoop.eu/internet-of-things/> [Accessed 12 May 2020].

ITU Telecommunication Standardization sectore “ITU-T Recommendation database," 2012

[online] Available at: <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/11559 en?locatt=format:pdf&auth.> [Accessed 26 April 2020].

Khan, M. and Salah, K., 2018. IoT security: Review, blockchain solutions, and open

challenges. Future Generation Computer Systems, 82, pp.395-411. Kolias, C., Stavrou, A., Voas, J., Bojanova, I. and Kuhn, R., 2016. Learning Internet-of-

Things Security "Hands-On." IEEE Security & Privacy, 14(1), pp.37-46. Lee, S., Bae, M. and Kim, H., 2017. Future of IoT Networks: A Survey. Applied Sciences,

7(10), p.1072. Li, S., Tryfonas, T. and Li, H., 2016. The Internet of Things: a security point of view. Internet

Research, 26(2), pp.337-359. Liu, Y. and Zhou, G., 2012. Key Technologies and Applications of Internet of Things. 2012

Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation,.

Patel, K. and Patel, S., 2016. Internet of Things-IoT: Definition, Characteristics, Architectur EnablingTechnologies, Application & Future Challenges. Radoglou Grammatikis, P., Sarigiannidis, P. and Moscholios, I., 2019. Securing the Internet of

Things: Challenges, threats and solutions. Internet of Things, 5, pp.41-70. Rani, D., 2019. Lightweight Security Protocols for Internet of Things: A Review. International

Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 8(3), pp.707-719. Rowley, J. and Slack, F., 2004. Conducting a literature review. Management Research News,

27(6), pp.31-39. Sahinaslan, E., 2019. On the internet of things: Security, threat and control. Sethi, P. and Sarangi, S., 2017. Internet of Things: Architectures, Protocols, and

Applications. Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2017, pp.1-25. Vashi, S., Ram, J., Modi, J., Verma, S. and Prakash, C., 2017. Internet of Things (IoT): A

vision, architectural elements, and security issues. 2017 International Conference on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) (I-SMAC),.

Page 56: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

57

Viriyasitavat, W., Anuphaptrirong, T. and Hoonsopon, D., 2019. When blockchain meets

Internet of Things: Characteristics, challenges, and business opportunities. Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 15, pp.21-28.

Yousuf, T., Mahmoud, R., Aloul, F. and Zualkernan, I., 2015. Internet of Things (IoT)

Security: Current Status, Challenges and Countermeasures. International Journal for Information Security Research, 5(4), pp.608-616.

Page 57: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

58

Appendices: Papers included in the final review

ID Author Year Title Source 1 Abomhara, M and Geir M.

Køien

2014 Security and privacy in the internet of Things: Current status and open issues

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6970594/

2 Akpakwu, G., Silva, B., Hancke, G. and Abu-Mahfouz, A.

2018 A survey on 5G Networks for the IOT:Communication technologies and challenges

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8141874

3 Alaba. F., Mazliza Othman, Ibrahim Abaker Targio Hashem and Faiz Alotaibi

2017 Internet of Things Security: A survery Google Scholar

4 Awad, Ali Ismail Fairhurst, Michael

2018 Information Security - Foundations, Technologies and Applications.

Google Scholar

5 E. Bertino and N. Islam.

2017 Botnets and Internet of Things security https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7842850

6 Andreas Burg, Anupam Chattopadhyay, And Kwok-yan Lam

2018 Wireless Communication and security issues for cyber-Physical systems and IoT

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8232533

7 Burhan, M., Rehman, R., Khan, B. and Kim, B.

2018 Internet of Things (IoT); layered architectures; security; privacy; security attacks;protection

methods; secure architecture

Google Scholar

8 Cerullo, Gianfranco & Mazzeo, Giovanni & Papale, Gaetano & Ragucci, Bruno & Sgaglione, Luigi

2018 IoT and Sensor Networks Secuirty Google Scholar

9 Dorsemaine Bruno, Jean-Philippe Gaulier, Jean-Philippe Wary and Nizar Kheir and Pascal Urien

2015 Internet of Things: a definition & taxonomy Google Scholar

10 Evans, D 2012 Internet of Everythin Google Scholar (Cisco.com) 11 Frustaci, M., Pace, P., Aloi,

G. and Fortino, G.

2018 Evaluating Critical Security Issues of the IoT World: Present and Future Challenges.

Google Scholar

12 Gou, Q., Yan, L., Liu, Y. and Li, Y.

2013 Construction and Strategies in IoT Security System Google Scholar

13 Jayavardhana Gubbi, Rajkumar Buyya, Slaven Marusic and Marimuthu Palaniswami

2013 IoT: A vision architectural elements and future directions

Google Scholar

14 Vikas Hassija, Vinay chamola, Vikas saxena, Divyansh Jain, Pranav Goyal, and Biplab sikdar

2019 A survey on IoT security: Application Areas, Security threats and solution Architectures

Google Scholar

15 i-scoop The Internet of Things: Definition and facts Google Scholar 16 ITU-T Overview of IoT Google Scholar

17 Minhaj Ahmad Khan and

Khaled Salah 2017 IoT security: Review, blockchain solutions, and open

challenges

Google Scholar

18 C. Kolias, A. Stavrou, J. Voas, I. Bojanova and R. Kuhn, "Learning Internet-of-Things Security "Hands-On"," in IEEE Security & Privacy, vol. 14

2016 Internet of Things security Hands on https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7397713

19 Lee. S., Bae,M and Ki, H.

2017 Future of IoT Network a survey Google Scholar

20 Shancang Li, Theo Tryfonas, Honglei Li

2016 The Internet of Things: a security point of view Google Scholar

21 Yuxi Liu and Guohui Zhou

2012 Key technologies and application of Internet of Things

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6150221

22 Patel, Keyur & Patel, Sunil & Scholar, P & Salazar, Carlos.

2016 Internet of Things-IOT: Definition, Characteristics, Architecture, Enabling Technologies, Application &

Future Challenges

Google Scholar

23 Radoglou Grammatikis, P., Sarigiannidis, P. and Moscholios, I., 2019

2019 Securing the Internet of Things: Challenges, threats and solutions. Internet of Things

www.ub.uu.se

24 Deepti Rani, Nasib Sing Gill 2019 Lightweight security protocols for Internet of Things: A review

www.ub.uu.se

25 Sahinaslan, E. 2019 On the internet of things: Security, threat and control. www.ub.uu.se

Page 58: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

59

26 Sethi, P. and Sarangi, S.

2017 Internet of Things: Architectures, Protocols, and

Applications.

Google Scholar

27 Shivangi Vashi, Jyotsnamayee Ram, Janit Modi, Saurav Verma and Dr. Chetana Prakash

2017 Internet of Things: A vision, Architecural Elements and security Issues

www.ub.uu.se

28 Wattana Viriyasitava, Tharwon Anuphaptrirong, Danupol Hoonsopon

2019 When blockchain meets IoT: Characteristics, challenges and business opportunities

Google Scholar

29 Rwan Mahmoud, Tasneem Yousuf, Fadi Aloul, Imran Zualkernan

2015 Internet of Things (IoT) Security: Current Status, Challenges and Countermeasures

Google Scholar

30 Aaditya Jain, Bhuwnesh Sharma, Pawan Gupta

2016 Internet of Things: Architecture, security goals, and challenges- A survey

Google scholar

31 Aakanksha Tewari, B.B. Gupta

2020 Security, Privacy and trust of different layers in Internet-of-Things (IoTs) framework

Google Scholar (Elsevier)

32 Abeer Assiri, Haya Almagwashi

2018 IOT security and privacy issues https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8442002

33 B V Santhosh Krishna, T Gnanasekaran

2017 A systematic study of security issues in Internet-of-Things (IoT)

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8058318

34 B.Di Martino, M. Rak, M. Ficco, A. Esposito, S.A. Maisto, S. Nacchia

2018 Internet of things reference architectures, security and interoperability: A survey

Google scholar (Elsevier)

35 Baoquan Zhang, Zongfeng Zou, Mingzheng Liu

2011 Evaluation on Security System of Internet of Things Based on Fuzzy-AHP Method

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5881939

36 Chakib Bekara 2014 Security issues and challenges for the IoT-based smart grid

Google Scholar

37 Diego Mendez, Ioannis Papapanagiotou, Baijian Yang

2017 Internet of Things: Survey on Security and privacy

Google scholar

38 Djamel Eddine Kouicem, Abdelmadjid Bouabdullah, Hicham Lakhlef

2018 Internet of Things security: A top-down survey

Google scholar (Elsevier)

39 Engin Leloglu

2016 A Review of Security Concerns in Internet of Things

Google Scholar

40 Fahad Azam, Rashid Munir, Mehboob Ahmed, M. Ayub, Ahthasham sajid, Zaheer Abbasi

2019 Internet of Things (IoT), Security issues and its solutions

www.ub.uu.se

41 Gurpreet Singh Matharu ; Priyanka Upadhyay ; Lalita Chaudhary

2014 The Internet of Things: Challenges & Security Issues

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7021016

42 Hany F. Atlam , Robert J. Walters , Gary B. Wills

2018 Internet of Things: State-of-the-art, Challenges, Applications, and Open Issues

Google scholar

43 Hasan Ali Khattak, Munam Ali shah, Sangeen khan, Ihsan Ali, Muhammad Imran

2019 Perception layer security in Internet of Things www.ub.uu.se

44 Ion Bica, Bogdan-Cosmin Chifor,S, tefan-Ciprian Arseni, Ioana Matei

2019 Multi-Layer IoT Security Framework for Ambient Intelligence Environments

www.ub.uu.se

45 Jayasree Sengupta, Sushmita Ruj, Sipra Das Bit

2020 A Comprehensive Survey on Attacks, Security Issues and Blockchain Solutions for IoT

Google Scholar (Elsevier)

46 Jesus Pacheco, Shalaka Satam, Salim Hariri, Clarisa Grijalva, Helena Berkenbrock

2016 IoT security development framework for building trustworthy smart car services

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7745481

47 Jie Lin, Wei Yu, Nan Zhang, Xinyu Yang, Hanlin Zhang, Wei Zhao

2017 A Survey on Internet of Things: Architecture, Enabling Technologies, Security and Privacy,

and Applications

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7879243

48 JS Kumar, DR Patels

2014 A Survey on Internet of Things: Security and Privacy Issues

Google Scholar

49 Jyoti Deogirikar ; Amarsinh Vidhate

2017 Security attacks in IoT: A survey https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8058363

Page 59: Internet of Things - uu.diva-portal.org1469432/FULLTEXT01.pdf · The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of billions of devices, people and services to Interconnect and exchange

60

50 Kai Zhao, Lina Ge 2013 A Survey on the Internet of Things Security https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6746513 51 Lo’ai Tawalbeh, Fadi

Muheidat, Mais Tawalbeh, Muhannad Quwaider

2020 IoT Privacy and Security: Challenges and Solutions

www.ub.uu.se

52 Mahmoud Ammar , Giovanni Russello , Bruno Crispo

2018 Internet of Things: A survey on the security of IoT frameworks

www.ub.uu.se

53 Mario Frustaci, Pasquale Pace, Gianluca Aloi

2017 Securing the IoT world: Issues and perspectives

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8088629

54 Mayuri A. Bhabad, Sudhir T. Bagade

2015 Internet of Things: Architecture, Security Issues and countermeasures

Google Scholar

55 Mian Muhammad Ahemd ; Munam Ali Shah ; Abdul Wahid

2017 IoT Security: A layered approach for attacks & Defenses

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8065757

56 Mohammed Ali Al-Garadi, Amr Mohamed, Abdulla Al-Ali, Xiaojiang Du, Ihsan Ali, Mohsen Guizani

2020 A Survey of Machine and Deep Learning Methods for Internet of Things (IoT) Security

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9072101

57 P.P. Ray 2018 A survey on Internet of Things architectures

Google.com (ScienceDirect)

58 Prachin Bhoyar, Parul Sahare, S.B. Dhok, R.B. Deshmukh

2018 Communication technologies and security challenges for internet of things: A

comprehensive review

www.ub.uu.se

59 Qi Jing, Athanasios V. Vasilakos, Jiafu Wan, Jingwei Lu, Dechao Qiu

2014 Security of the Internet of Things: perspectives and challenges

www.ub.uu.se

60 Reem Abdul Rahman, Babar Shah

2016 Security analysis of IoT protocol https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7460363

61 Ruei-Hau Hsu, Jemin Lee, Tony Q. S. Quek, and Jyh-Cheng Chen

2018 Reconfigurable Security: Edge-Computing-Based Framework for IoT

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8473487

62 Sathish Alampalayam Kumar, Tyler Vealey, Harshit Srivastava

2016 Security in Internet of Things: Challenges, Solutions and Future Directions

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7427903

63 Shancang Li, Theo Tryfonas, Honglei Li

2016 The Internet of Things: a security point of view

www.ub.uu.se

64 Sowmya Nagasimha Swamy, Dipti Jadhav, Nikita Kulkarni

2017 Security Threats in the Application layer in IOT Applications

Ihttps://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8058395

65 Sudeendra kumar K, Sauvagya sahoo, Abhishek Mahapatra, Ayas Kanta Swain, K.K. Mahapatra

2017 Security Enhancements to system on chip devices for IoT perception layer

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8293922

66 Syed Rizvi, Joseph Pfeffer III, Andrew Kurts, Mohammad Rizvi

2018 Securing the Internet of Things (IoT): A security Taxonomy for IoT

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8455902

67 Tariq Aziz Rao, Ehsan-ul-Haq

2018 Security challenges facing IoT layers and its protective measures

Google scholar

68 Weizhe Zhang, Baosheng Qu

2013 Security architecture of the Internet of Things oriented to perceptual layer

Google.com

69 Zaied Shouran, Ahmad Ashari, Tri Kuntoro Riyambodo

2019 Internet of Things (IoT) of Smart Home: Privacy and Security

Google scholar (ResearchGate)

70 Zejun Ren, Xiangang Liu, Runguo Ye, Tao Zhang

2017 Security and privacy on Internet of things https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8076530


Recommended