Internet of Things: Security & Legal Aspects

This assignment delves into the Internet of Things (IoT), exploring its significance in contemporary and future ICT landscapes. It analyzes various cybersecurity threats such as Denial-of-Service attacks, brute force techniques, malware, and their potential impact on IoT devices. The report further investigates the political and legal ramifications of IoT, including the need for robust security policies and the evolving legal framework surrounding data privacy and intellectual property rights. It concludes by highlighting the importance of addressing these challenges to ensure the secure and ethical development of IoT technologies.

Running head: INTERNET OF THINGS
Internet of Things
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

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Abstract
The main aim of this report is to give an overview of the several aspects of IoT or Internet of
Things. IoT is gaining importance with the development of ICT. DoS, physical access and
privacy access are certain issues related to the cyber security that are discussed in the report. The
society achieves several benefits by utilizing IoT. IoT can be used for several good and criminal
purposes. These purposes are also discussed in this report. One dangerous misuse of IoT is to
spread terrorism in the society. Incorporation of strong security policies can help to overcome the
security related threats and risks of IoT.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Recent Cyber-security Issues of IoT....................................................................................3
Future of IoT........................................................................................................................4
IoT- Used for Good and Criminal Purposes........................................................................5
Social, Political and Legal Aspects.....................................................................................6
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................6
References............................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
IoT or Internet of Things consists of several computing devices and systems. These
devices are interrelated. Advanced technologies are utilized in an effective manner in IoT. These
technologies play a major role in networking, robotics and sensing (Whitmore, Agarwal & Da
Xu, 2015). In this era of ICT, the importance of IoT is increasing at a fast pace. IoT can make the
society “smart” by utilizing Internet and advanced technologies in an effective manner.
This report focuses on the several types of cyber-security related issues of IoT. This
report discusses about the future use of IoT. It also discusses about the positive impact of IoT on
the society. This report talks about the criminal activities that can take place by using IoT. It also
gives a brief overview of the legal, political and social aspects of Internet of Things.
Recent Cyber-security Issues of IoT
Cyber threats and risks are becoming a major concern of the society. Cyber attacks are
increasing at a fast pace. Internet Technology facilitates the hackers and criminals to gain
unauthorized access to valuable data (Abomhara, 2015). Some of the cyber-security problems
and issues of IoT are:
Physical attacks: The IoT devices are vulnerable to physical attacks as most of them
operate in an external or outdoor environment. In this type of attack the hardware components of
most of the devices are tampered.
Reconnaissance attacks: This is a kind of attack where unauthorized discovery and
mapping of vulnerabilities, systems and services occur.

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DoS: The network resources are wasted so that the intended users cannot avail the
resources when required in DoS attacks (Kasinathan et al., 2013). Low capacity of memory as
well as limited resources of IoT devices make them vulnerable or susceptible to DoS attacks.
Access attacks: In this type of attack, the attacker tries to gain unauthorized access to IoT
devices. It can either be remote access or physical access.
Privacy attacks: Eavesdropping attack is one such type of privacy attack where the
attacker silently listens to the conservation between two communicating parties or components
(Fink et al., 2015). Other types of privacy attacks include tracking of UID of the users.
Cyber-crimes: Internet technology facilitates the criminals to exploit the valuable data of
the users. Identity theft, intellectual property theft, brand theft as well as fraud are some of the
examples that depict cyber-crimes.
Destructive attacks: Cyber space can be misused for destructing life and property
through the terrorist and revenge attacks.
Future of IoT
IoT will have a huge positive impact on the society in future. IoT will be responsible for
creating “smart’ society where people will utilize Internet and advanced technologies for the
purpose of reducing their work and saving more time. The users will be able to travel faster and
select an appropriate route by taking the help of IoT. The health of patients and old people can be
monitored by health devices at home (Singh, Tripathi & Jara, 2014). IoT will guide the
organizations to get an insight into the choices and preferences of the clients so that they can
increase the customer satisfaction level and generate more profit and revenue. Smart irrigation

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practices can be applied by farmers for increasing the productivity level. Farmers will understand
what quantity and which place to water by using IoT. Waste elimination can also be possible by
the help of smart devices. Street lighting as well as road safety will improve by correct
methodologies of data collection. Most of the cities will turn into smart cities in the future.
Machine learning will also be facilitated. The security features of routers will improve along
with its smart features. IoT will play a significant role in the future.
IoT- Used for Good and Criminal Purposes
IoT have several positive impacts on the society like:
Smart home creation: IoT can create smart homes. This will save time as well as money
and energy of the people (Soliman et al., 2013). Human life will become much better and
simpler.
Wearable: Sensors play a major role in wearable devices. These sensors collect
information about the user of the device (Gubbi et al., 2013). Data is collected and processed
mostly for understanding the user’s health, fitness as well as entertainment choices.
Smart cities: IoT devices can turn the city smart by implementing automated
transportation process, urban security, energy management, environment monitoring as well as
smart surveillance.
There are certain negative impacts of IoT as well. It can facilitate criminal in the
following ways:

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The most dangerous acts that can take place by using IoT are terrorist attacks as well as
revenge attacks. The cyber space can be misused by the criminals to plan any destruction that
will harm human lives as well as properties.
Cyber viruses and worms can infect the IoT devices that are connected to the web for the
purpose of gaining control of the device. One of the dangerous attacks is called DDoS attack.
Hackers can exploit the vulnerabilities of the wearable devices to gain unauthorized
access to valuable data. Alteration of device settings can harm the patients in a critical way.
Social, Political and Legal Aspects
IoT allows information to flow in an effective manner across professional as well as
residential communities. This creates social capital. The society will get several benefits (Da Xu,
He & Li, 2014). The cost that are involved in storing, communicating and finding information
that are related o politics has become very less. Advanced business patterns will be generated by
IoT that will generate the need for making new contracts by lawyers. The contracts of business,
financial and health sectors will need to incorporate new or advanced legal factors.
Conclusion
This report concluded that IoT is considered to play a major role in this generation of
ICT. It is also expected to play a significant role in the future generation. This report said that
DoS, privacy attacks and cyber crimes are some of the cyber-security attacks. A system
password can be cracked by using dictionary and Brute Force attacks. Malicious software can
also infect the wearable devices. This report also discussed about the role that IoT will play in
the future. It gave a brief overview of the fact that of some criminal activities that can be

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facilitated by IoT. The political and legal aspects of IoT are also discussed in this report.
Incorporation of strong security policies can help to overcome the security related threats and
risks of IoT.

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References
Abomhara, M. (2015). Cyber security and the internet of things: vulnerabilities, threats,
intruders and attacks. Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility, 4(1), 65-88.
Da Xu, L., He, W., & Li, S. (2014). Internet of things in industries: A survey. IEEE
Transactions on industrial informatics, 10(4), 2233-2243.
Fink, G. A., Zarzhitsky, D. V., Carroll, T. E., & Farquhar, E. D. (2015, June). Security and
privacy grand challenges for the Internet of Things. In Collaboration Technologies and
Systems (CTS), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 27-34). IEEE.
Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A
vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future generation computer
systems, 29(7), 1645-1660.
Kasinathan, P., Pastrone, C., Spirito, M. A., & Vinkovits, M. (2013, October). Denial-of-
Service detection in 6LoWPAN based Internet of Things. In Wireless and Mobile
Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), 2013 IEEE 9th International
Conference on (pp. 600-607). IEEE.
Singh, D., Tripathi, G., & Jara, A. J. (2014, March). A survey of Internet-of-Things: Future
vision, architecture, challenges and services. In Internet of things (WF-IoT), 2014 IEEE
world forum on (pp. 287-292). IEEE.
Soliman, M., Abiodun, T., Hamouda, T., Zhou, J., & Lung, C. H. (2013, December). Smart
home: Integrating internet of things with web services and cloud computing. In Cloud

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Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), 2013 IEEE 5th International
Conference on (Vol. 2, pp. 317-320). IEEE.
Whitmore, A., Agarwal, A., & Da Xu, L. (2015). The Internet of Things—A survey of topics
and trends. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(2), 261-274.