Detailed Analysis of IoT Security and Privacy Issues

This report provides a detailed analysis of security and privacy issues within Internet of Things (IoT) applications. It examines various IoT applications, identifying key security concerns such as malware and man-in-the-middle attacks, and the characteristics of IoT devices that contribute to these vulnerabilities. The report explores how the interdependency, diversity, and resource constraints of IoT devices impact their security. It also investigates the role of data collection, storage, and processing in cloud environments, highlighting the importance of robust security strategies to protect user data. The report reviews literature to strengthen its arguments, offering insights into the challenges of ensuring data security and user privacy in the rapidly evolving IoT landscape. The report concludes by summarizing research findings, analyzing the impact of security and privacy issues, and suggesting mitigation strategies for enhancing the security and privacy of IoT applications.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
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1ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
Abstract
The report has provided a detailed analysis regarding security and privacy issues in IoT
applications. This report has considered various applications of IoT and then it has identified
what are the security issues that need to be considered for these applications as well. It is
important to identify that this is era of digitalization and technology. In this era, human
privacy is significantly dependent on data security. Therefore, if there is a compromise in
data security, it affects privacy. Along with identifying security issues in IoT applications, it
is also important to design proper security strategies as well. Innovation in IOT has helped in
implementing various new features that enhance applications of IoT. However, these features
are also responsible for various security and privacy issues as well.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Purpose of report:...................................................................................................................3
Analysis of position on this topic:..........................................................................................3
Expected format of this report:..............................................................................................4
Literature review:.......................................................................................................................6
Characteristics of IoT applications:.......................................................................................6
How security and privacy of IoT devices are compromised:.................................................8
Why IoT devices are targeted by hackers:...........................................................................10
Methodology:...........................................................................................................................12
Comparison of methodologies:................................................................................................12
Analysis of result:....................................................................................................................14
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................17
References:...............................................................................................................................19

3ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
Introduction:
Purpose of report:
The purpose of the report is to provide a detailed analysis regarding security and
privacy issues in IoT applications. This report will consider various applications of IoT and
then identify what are the security issues that need to be considered for these applications as
well. Along with this, this report will also analyse reason for these security and privacy issues
for providing a comprehensive idea regarding this in this context. In order to ensure
authenticity and credibility of this report, various literatures will be considered in this
context. This literature review will provide context for executing research and therefore, this
report provides a special focus in this aspect. This literature review will also provide context
to support research argument with evidence for enhancing quality of this research report as
well. This report will also present an in-depth analysis of research findings to identify how
security and privacy issues are affecting applications of IoT and how these issues are
mitigated for ensuing that applications of IoT is effective and efficient as well.
Analysis of position on this topic:
Internet of things or IoT is one of the significant innovation in this digital era and it
has revolutionized application of networking and computing as well. IoT refers to network of
devices and sensors which are connected through internet. These devices and sensors
communicate through each other through internet and provide context for different
applications for which IoT is considered. Although IoT is considered for different
applications, but in all of these applications, one thing is common that is collect data through
sensors. These sensors in IoT network collects data from different sources according to
requirements (Alrawais et al., 2017). These data also include personal data and therefore, any
illegal access to these without authorization is compromise data security and privacy as well.

4ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
In applications of IoT, infrastructure is designed in such a way it is not possible to implement
advanced security strategies as it require advanced computing resources and data processing.
Therefore, resource constraints is one of the significant issues in IoT applications and
therefore, it is also easy to exploit IoT devices and access data as well.
In IoT applications, sensors that collects data send this data to cloud where it is stored
for processing. If these data are not processed properly then it is not possible to execute
different applications for which IoT is considered and therefore, processing of these data is
important as well (Yang et al., 2017). However, if security strategies implemented for
ensuing that data in cloud is not accessed needs to be effective, otherwise if access to data is
obtained without authorization, then it compromise data security and also privacy of owner of
the data as well.
Therefore, in order to ensure that proper security strategies are designed and
implemented for enhancing security and privacy of IoT applications. It is important to
identify that in this era of digitalization of technology, human privacy is significantly
dependent on security of data and therefore, compromise in data security significantly affects
privacy (Alaba et al., 2017). Therefore, it is not only enough to identify security issues in IoT
applications, it is also required to ensure proper security strategies as well.
Expected format of this report:
This report first provides introduction of the report which is followed by literature
review. Then, this report will provide details regarding research findings along with
conclusion for the report as well.
Introduction:
This chapter provides purpose of the report and also provides a comprehensive
overview of the report as well.

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Literature review:
It will include description regarding analysis of different literatures on security and
privacy of IoT applications. It will describe different research findings provided by previous
researchers in this context. This will provide evidence regarding argument made in this report
regarding issues of IoT applications in terms of security and privacy as well. This chapter is
one of the moist significant aspect of this report and therefore, it is described in details for
providing a comprehensive idea regarding research done for analysing security and privacy
issues in IoT applications as well.
Findings and analysis:
It will provide description regarding findings of this report according to the research
done in this context. It will describe which issues are important in terms of IoT applications
and how these issues needs to be resolved for enhancing security and privacy of IoT
applications as well.
Conclusion:
It provides summary of research findings obtained through analysis of literatures and
also concludes this report as well.

6ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
Literature review:
Characteristics of IoT applications:
Innovation in IOT has provided various new features are provided through application of IoT.
However, these features are also responsible for various security and privacy issues. In order
to analyse security and privacy issues in IoT applications, it is important to identify some of
the characteristics of IoT technology. These characteristics of IoT are most significant
regarding security and privacy issues (Razzaq et al., 2017). Features that are considered by
most of the previous researchers while analysing IoT security and privacy issues are
interdependence, diversity, and constrained, myriad, unattended, intimacy mobile and
ubiquitous.
In this literature review, these characteristics of IoT will be analysed and it will be identified
how these characteristics of IoT technology compromise security and privacy of IoT devices
and network.
Interdependency:
Due to increase in number of IoT devices it is important to identify that interactions between
these devices has become significantly complex and it is therefore not that easy to control
these devices (Vashi et al., 2017). Hackers are considering this interdependency between IoT
devices for exploiting its security.
Diversity:
Another important issue in IoT security threat is its diversity. IoT technology are now being
considered in various applications. Different types of Iot devices are being designed for some
specific application and these devices interact with physical environment as well (Nawir et

7ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
al., 2018). As these system is diverse, it is not easy to design a common security strategy for
ensuing security and privacy of data collected for these applications.
Constrained:
In order to make IoT devices affordable and provide context for designing applications with
it, it is required to make these devices lightweight and small in size (Azam et al., 2019). This
is referred to as resource constrain for IoT device. Due to resource constrain, it is not possible
to implement advanced security arrangements in IoT network for ensuring security of
applications.
Myriad:
Due to increase in application of iot devices, vast amount of data is generated and transited
which makes it difficult for collecting, organizing and processing these data while ensuing
security and privacy of these data (Yaqoob et al., 2017). It makes it easier for hackers to
access these data exploiting security of iot devices, therefore, compromise security of iot
applications as well.
Unattended:
IoT applications are designed such that it is not easy to connect these devices physically with
external environment. Therefore, it is not easy to identify when these devices are exploited
remotely through some malicious activities (Hukkeri & Goudar, 2018). Therefore, this is a
significant issue in security and privacy of IoT applications and therefore, data security is
compromised as well.
Intimacy:
The intimate relationship that is provided between IoT devices and its users are leading to
some significant privacy concerns (Wang et al., 2016). This intimacy is allowing hackers to

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infer in IoT communications. Therefore, it is affecting privacy of people who are considering
applications of IoT. Therefore, it needs to be analysed properly as well.
Mobile:
There are many iot devices that are being deployed in mobile environment. These mobile
devices are often required to move from one network to another for communication (Sha et
al., 2018). It is important to analyse that mobile iot devices are required to join many
networks and this is what is allowing hackers to implement malicious code into these iot
devices that are being implemented in mobile environment. Along with this, mobile iot
devices are also need to communicate with many other devices, therefore, compromising in
security of one iot device will affect security of other devices. Therefore, just by
compromising security of one iot devices, it is possible to compromise security of overall iot
network as well.
Ubiquitous:
IoT applications have become so popular that it has influenced various aspects of people
lives. It is therefore justified to say that people will not only use them, they will be dependent
on them as well. The way IoT devices are becoming popular, it is easy to identify that
number of IoT devices will easily supress number of people who are considering those
applications (Kouicem, Bouabdallah & Lakhlef, 2018). According to statistics provided by
Govtech, each person on an average will own six to eight IoT devices. It means that people
will provide large amount of private data to these IoT devices and this is a serious concern for
privacy. As large amount of private data is provided to these IoT devices, if these devices are
hacked then it will provide easier access to personal data and therefore, it is a significant
privacy issue for IoT applications as well.

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How security and privacy of IoT devices are compromised:
Malware attack:
One of the significant techniques for compromising IoT application security is malware
attack and this is popular among hackers as well. IoT consists of smart physical objects for
example vehicles or various embedded devices for example routers and toasters. These
devices consist of sensors which are embedded within these devices. These devices are
connected via the internet, which makes it possible for the connected devices while collecting
and exchanging data which allows users to ensure that they have control over those devices
as well (Krishna & Gnanasekaran, 2017). IoT devices in its majority includes sensors and
actuators and these components play a very crucial role in designing the IOT applications. All
IoT devices are capable of processing and communicating a vast amount of data. As IoT
applications access these massive amount of data, security of data is an important concern in
this context.
In order to implement malware for exploiting security of IoT devices, hackers consider
application of IoT botnets.
Man in the middle:
The man-in-the-middle is a security exploitation technique which allows an attacker or
hacker to intercept a communication that is provided between any two systems. It is a popular
security exploitation technique where a hacker takes identity of the original sender. As the
attacker is capable of accessing the original communication, it is possible for them in tricking
the recipient which makes them think that information that they are getting is legitimate
message. This is the most significant aspect of this security issue (Deogirikar & Vidhate,
2017). Owner of the data has not idea that their information is being accessed without their
acknowledgement. Therefore, they has no information regarding that their privacy is being
hacked. for example if there is an IoT application that collects financial data and if this

10ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
application is hacked, then hackers will get easy access to financial data of people and
therefore, compromising their privacy (Fernandes et al., 2017). Owner of the data will not
identify these data are not only being accessed by the application that they trust, but it is also
being accessed by someone else whom they do not trust. Therefore, through this technique it
is possible to compromise security and privacy of people as well.
Brute force attack:
Although brute force attack is one of the oldest and less sophisticated technique, it is still
very popular (Chahid, Benabdellah & Azizi, 2017). In this process, hackers in order to get
access to the system provide password through trial and error method. Although they do not
have access to the actual password required to login to the system, they guess password and
provide password one after another till it is not correct. Once a correct password is identified,
it allows hackers to access to these system. Once access is established it is easier for them to
access data that are stored in these applications as well.
Although there are other methods for exploiting security and privacy of IoT applications,
these three methods are most popular as these methods are very effective and provide easier
access to system data as well. A statistics is provided in this context in result and analysis
section of this research report for providing a comprehensive idea regarding which techniques
are most popular and therefore providing context for designing security strategies for
enhancing security and privacy of IoT applications as well.
Why IoT devices are targeted by hackers:
Over the years, there have been significant rise in incident of IoT devices hack and data
breach as well. However, it is important to identify why these devices are targeted for
analysing security flaws in these systems (Fernandes, Rahmati & Feamster, 2019).

11ANALYSIS OF IOT SECURITY ISSUES
One of the main reasons for IoT device hack is lack of security measures in these devices
(Ren et al., 2017). It is also important to identify that it is not possible to implement
sophisticated security techniques in these devices because due to lack of resource capability
referred to as resource constraint which has been already analysed in this context.
Although there are advanced security algorithm which are capable of minimizing these
security issues, it is possible to implement these security algorithm in these devices, as these
devices lack computation power that is required for implementing these advanced security
algorithm (Zhou et al., 2018).
Lack of resource capability and computation power makes IoT devices so vulnerable.
Therefore, hackers target these devices for accessing data that these devices collects and these
data are required for providing features through IoT applications as well (Lee & Kim, 2017)).
Methodology:
In this research paper, the methodology that is considered is secondary quantitative research.
In this approach, some published data regarding security issues in IoT applications will be
analysed.
It has selected data from different sources regarding type of security issues and how these
issues have affected security and privacy of IoT applications. After analysing those data, it
has prioritized type of security issues according to their popularity for exploiting IoT
application security and privacy as well.
First reports regarding IoT security issues are identified. Then those reports are analysed and
data are collected. Then those data are analysed to find which method is most popular and
then data is arranged accordingly. While searching for data, not only research reports, but
business reports are considered as well. It has been ensured that reports are identified from
reliable sources for enhancing quality and accuracy of data as well.