News
Telcos back industry body’s bid to standardise approach to countering threats to connected objects.
The GSMA on Tuesday released a set of security guidelines for the Internet of Things (IoT) in a bid to ensure services are reliable and trustworthy.
They take the form of separate documents targeted at the major component parts of the IoT value chain, such as the service, network and terminal. The idea is that by following these guidelines, the industry will develop IoT services and devices with security baked in from the start.
"As billions of devices become connected in the Internet of Things, offering innovative and interconnected new services, the possibility of potential vulnerabilities increases," said the GSMA’s chief technology officer Alex Sinclair, in a statement.
"These can be overcome if the end-to-end security of an IoT service is carefully considered by the service provider when designing their service and an appropriate mitigating technology is deployed," he said. "A proven and robust approach to security will create trusted, reliable services that scale as the market grows."
In addition to outlining technologies and techniques to address potential threats, the guidelines also establish the need for risk assessment of an IoT service to ensure they are designed to securely collect, store and exchange data, and successfully mitigate cybersecurity attacks.
Reviewed by academics, analysts and industry experts, the guidelines have also been backed by a number of industry players, from operators like AT&T, Etisalat, NTT DoCoMo, and Orange, to vendors including Ericsson, Gemalto and Telit, among others.
"Security is paramount to something that touches and influences our lives as deeply as IoT. These guidelines are a vital initiative towards realising the vision of a robust and highly secure IoT ecosystem," said Cameron Coursey, vice president of product development at AT&T’s IoT solutions unit.
The GSMA’s announcement follows a warning issued by Telefonica in late January that not enough is being done to address the security threat to IoT services.
"There is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that cyberattacks are already happening in the burgeoning IoT space. If not handled appropriately, these attacks are likely to inhibit the growth and stability of the Internet of Things," said Don Bailey, founder and CEO of Lab Mouse Security, which specialises in protecting mobile devices and embedded modules.
"It is imperative that the industry adopts a standard approach for dealing with security risks and mitigations, helping to ensure that the entire IoT ecosystem will not be subject to fraud, exposures of privacy, or attacks that affect human life," he said.
