Security

IOT and Cloud Computing Security Threats

Technology is evolving rapidly, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud Computing are growing fields in the area of computing. IoT brings about smart objects whereby there is an integration of sensors and objects that communicate directly with one another without human intervention. Through cloud computing firms can outsource their processes and various IT responsibilities. Cloud computing allows firms to concentrate on their business thus increasing productivity, utilizing hardware resources, and cutting the storage cost incurred over IT infrastructure. IoT resorts to the cloud for outsourced storage and computation. However, the security issue is a great challenge for IoT and Cloud Computing despite their benefits.

IoT and Cloud Computing

It was estimated that come 2020 there will be millions of smart objects and devices, which is now absolutely true. The cloud computing technology analyzes and stores data efficiently, this computing technology has servers that are converged on cloud platforms such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to enable sharing of resources, which can be accessed at any place and time using the internet.

Cloud Computing is the most important part of IoT which converges the servers, analyzes information obtained from the sensors, increases processing power, and provides good storage capacity. Cloud computing is integrated with smart objects which use many sensors and helps IoT for large-scale development. IoT depends on cloud computing and both computing technologies face security threats.

Security Threats facing IOT and Cloud Computing

In these sections, major security threats of IoT and Cloud computing are explored. They include data threats, network threats, cloud environment threats, physical attack, unauthorized access to RFID, and sensor nodes security threats.

Data Threats

While transmitting data it is always important to hide from observing devices on the internet. Data is a valuable resource to any organization and person, and the rate of shifting data to the cloud is increasing every day. The biggest challenge in achieving cloud-computing security is to secure data, this is because clients depend on the service providers to ensure that the data is secure. The properties of data security maintained by the cloud include confidentiality, integrity, authorization, data availability, and privacy. Improper handling of data by the cloud may lead to data threats, which include data breach, data loss, integrity violations, and unauthorized access.

Data Breach

It involves leakage of user or organization data to an unauthorized user. This may happen due to malicious attackers who access the system in an unauthorized way. It can also happen accidentally due to infrastructure flaws, operational issues, and insufficiency of authentication or audit controls.

Data Loss

It is a very sensitive issue related to cloud and IoT security. It happens when a malicious attacker has unauthorized access to the system or network to manipulate data. Malware attacks also cause data destruction.

Network Threats

Network security is an important factor in IoT and cloud, having weak network security leads to attacks, which include man-in-the-middle attacks and denial of service. IoT network security involves securing the communication network of different IoT objects.

Man-in-the-Middle attack

It is a form of account hijacking where an attacker steals the credentials of the user to get access to his account. The credentials are used to access and monitor the network causing interference in communication between the nodes. For more information on Man-in-the-middle attacks - feel free to read our article on the subject.

Denial of Service

DOS attacks are done to prevent legitimate users from accessing the IoT and cloud network, storage, data, and other computing services. DOS attacks also cause a delay in operations because many requests are made thus consuming more resources. For more information on Denial of Service attacks - please refer to our other article on the subject.

Cloud Environment Threats

Insecure Interfaces and APIs

Application Programming Interface (API) enables the communication between application and server. Cloud security depends on API security. Security threats are likely to happen if there is a weak set of APIs.

Misuse of Cloud Services

Abuse of cloud services is involved with cloud users who violate their contracts with the cloud platform. The malicious attackers are likely to launch brute force attacks, Trojans, SQL injection, botnets, phishing, and DoS attacks. The service providers are not able to detect the launched attacks on their networks because they cannot generate attacks or block the attacks

Malicious Intruders

These people work on the cloud platform, have access to user’s data and resources, and get involved in data manipulation.

Cloud computing is widely used and embraced through the world thus IoT depends on the cloud because of the storage of data and resources. The two computing technologies face security threats and it’s a major issue. It is important to mitigate security issues to maintain the trust and integrity of customers. IoT and Cloud computing technologies are advancing rapidly thus factual security is required.