IoT Essay: Benefits, Challenges, And Applications.

The purpose of this assignment is to develop research and analytical skills. In this assignment students will first learn how to develop knowledge on current state
of the art of an emerging knowledge domain. Students will then critically analyse three current or future security issues in this area and its countermeasures.
Students should be able to demonstrate their achievements in the following unit learning outcomes:

1. Explain the major methodologies for secure networks and what threats they address;

2. Identify and report network threats, select and implement appropriate countermeasures for network security;The purpose of this assignment is to develop research and analytical skills. In this assignment students will first learn how to develop knowledge on current state of the art of an emerging knowledge domain. Students will then critically analyse three current or future security issues in this area and its countermeasures.

Students should be able to demonstrate their achievements in the following unit learning outcomes:
1. Explain the major methodologies for secure networks and what threats they address;
2. Identify and report network threats, select and implement appropriate countermeasures for network security;

Benefits of IoT

Change is inevitable, however things look beautiful and perfect there must be a time things must change. The Internet of Things (IoT) means a lot to people in the sense that, everything from new applications in our technology is based on the Internet of Things. Things such as smart cities, to massive sensor that helps in monitoring all systems in our environment and Industry. The rise of IoT will drive a fundamental discontinuity in the market of service. And if the change is termed to be negative, then the companies that embrace the change are in the better position of benefiting from the internet of things. With all benefits from IoT, it has some issues on security which makes it be unsafe for the systems thus require a way of monitoring its function [1].

IT is a very important part of our lives in that, when in any case IT stops today, that’s in another way to mean that, business has to stop, customer care will also stop [2]. This is why however much the traditional IT seems to go down there is a way IoT had to be introduced to enhance the former IT and the IoT to make the world a better place. Though the Idea is so appealing there are a lot of differences, between the traditional IT and IoT. IoT is business driven, in that it is not a technology solution looking for business, but it is used as a purpose built solving a specific problems. This is to say that in the traditional network, the main purpose was to look for the problem that is in the business but it never goes as far as looking into specific problems facing business. With the emerging of the Internet of Things, the two main purposes of business that is making money and saving money [3]. Internet of things has ensured that every business has a system device that makes it to achieve its two goals of making money and saving money.

For a couple of years, IT has been dealing with a steady rise in the volume, velocity and variety of data. One has to ask a question like, what will happen when the large amount of data needed to be stored in the system where will it be kept. We can try and say maybe in the clouds, but how would that happen even if the system has the Internet of Things with it, the security and management of IT has helped in a  great deal, where one uses the measurements given to any data. For instance one must know the volume of the data and its cost. If at any case the cost is higher than the volume of the data then the data should not be stored but rather be deleted for it wastes space for no value. So one of the characters of the internet of things is that it deals with the volume, velocity and variety of data [4].

Challenges of IoT

Operational technology and Informational technology needs to work together in order to achieve a given duty. For this two to work together they must be made to be one and  Internet of Things  seems to be the mother of all operational technology OT and Information technology IT. This is how it works, being that both OT and IT have different life span, IT cannot own an Internet of things to give a solution to a given problem. For a business problem to be solved, IT will go to the field to work with OT and its owners, in order to achieve end-to end business solution [5]. So it is clear that information technology cannot fully depend on the internet of things to build end-to-end solutions but at least it needs its little effect together with the operational information.

Internet of Things is not a single unit, but it is the integration of many things. As IT organizations begin to build their IoT solutions, they are prone to face challenges especially in the integration of the edge device to the IoT platform. The bigger problem can be in the service section where the problem will especially be in the identity, security and application operations. This cannot give the business chance of growing amicably, so the only way of managing or avoid this problems, is by forming an IoT solution team lead by IoT architect and this is done by the IT organizations. When this is done the integrations problems will be solved thus enhancing the work of the work of the IoT in the IT organizations.

The world is turning into a world of technology, especially the way the Internet of Things is getting better and better every day. With this kind of developments, one cannot stay for days before getting information from organizations launching new IoT enabled products. The internet of things has many areas of applications that make it even more important in the world of technology. In this paper am going to talk about only three areas of application that enhances our living today and even improves our business sectors in the world [6]. The three areas am going to talk about are; smart homes, smart cities and Industrial internet. The coming of the internet of things really enhanced the standard of living for all, especially who fears for their lives and properties. The IoT has made sure there is security in our smart cities, homes and even in our investments sectors. The world has become a better place because of the internet of things. It has transformed homes to better places and organizations have improved in their customer and service providence system since they embraced the internet of things in their technology.

Applications of IoT

The way people in these big cities are highly influenced by the internet of things. This is in the way that they go on their daily duties and even get to earn their daily living. Internet of things ensures safety of people in the city; this is possible through the installation CCTV in every place to monitor movement of people [7]. The way water gets into the city is all work of the internet of things. The wastes in the urban centers are highly monitored by the internet of things. Smart cities have gained full security and population management through the courtesy of internet of things.  The way people live in urban centers without bothering of how they all things are moving so efficiently from water in their taps, lighting in their house and even bell at their doors, is a mystery to all especially when have little knowledge in technology. Internet of things is a gift to the world of technology.

The integrations of physical machinery with software’s and sensors, through this, it enables the industry to draw fields together such as machine learning. It provides communication into every machine that ingests them with the data information and analyzes it to adjust its operation [3]. Think of engineers when the problem emerges with any device, they will be able to access the device after they are informed by a given device and corrects the impending problem. When this happens the organization would be able to grow in technology without delaying their customers.

The internet of things helps in the provision of home automation system which controls, climates, and entertainment system. Alarm system is also one of the devices of internet of things. These systems when connected to the internet are very important to homes. Although many venders compete for the production of smart homes, only a few are allowed into the market. Smart homes have gone into the high level of ranking in the application of internet of things, and it has many Google’s than any other area of internet of things.

As long as the companies embrace the integration of internet of things, there are a lot of security challenges that also comes with it. In internet of things there are three security issues which emerge with the internet of things, that when not well taken care of, then the integration of internet of things can be of high risk than ever. The three issues of security are as follows: theft of identity and devices that are unsecured, patching that is insufficient and testing, and multi-layer data management and security, am bound to explain each one of it.

Smart Homes

It requires a change of mindset on IoT technology to dealing with the devices that hold important information such as financial reports and employee data. Either way, not all IoT devices have the security to counter either identity theft or security breaches [8]. At the end-user level, it is possible for hackers to infiltrate the data Centre. There are better ways of managing and controlling any security issues that can emerge from the internet of things and they are as follows.

The deployment of software is the common security challenge of IoT. The outdated devices may contain vulnerabilities that can give hackers easy way to get into the device thus causing risk to the organization. It is advisable to monitor every device to make sure their security posture has watertight so that customers can decide on retiring the outdated devices.

The internet of things has become the trend of business investment, though it should not reach point of risking the business itself. Security should be the heart of every investment, so as to put IoT security challenge in mind to secure your customers from high risk of losing their investment [15]. The challenges like communication, cloud platforms and end- point devices. When all this made sure then our business and devices are monitored and our organizations are safe to use internet of things.

With the exchange of internet over time in technology it comes with some challenges. That needs a lot of attention to deal with so as to secure our organizational devices. IoT has a lot of applications that are meant to make life easier, but the due to their security issues there are a lot of countermeasures that will help in controlling the security issues [9].

This allows the user to interact with the device, where by the user can allow the hacker to use unauthorized access to the device. This can be done by the encryption of session management and weak account lockout settings [10]. The countermeasures of such problems are as follows. The default passwords and usernames should be changed at initial intervals, which will enable to control the hackers from invading your device. Ensuring weak passwords is not allowed. The more the internet of things is restricted and it adopts the strict and unpredicted passwords then this kind of risk will be controlled and even help in well management of internet of things.

Some of the devices have a weak password which enables the user to access high level of devices thus allowing some vulnerability. The cause of this can be lack of poorly protected credentials and insecure password recovery [14]. There are some of countermeasures that will help in these risks. The first one is ensuring granular access control is in place when necessary, when this is done strong passwords should be put in place to avoid infiltration by strangers into the device. This security measures can help the internet of things to be reliable and safe for every user that desires to use it [16].

Smart Cities

This gives an intruder chance to access to the device or any associated data. These problems include vulnerable services and opening pin via UPnP and denial of service. The possible measures to control such challenges are; ensure that only necessary ports are exposed and available to avoid mischievous acts by the intruders and to avoid the opening of the pin with UPnP, is for the user to ensure networks ports or services are not exposed to the internet via UPnP [11]).

Internet of things has changed life of many organizations, especially on the investment sector making it easier to understand the world of technology. The theft cases are reduced due to strong passwords encrypt in the new technology [13]. The use of internet of things is a change that organizations, homes and cities should embrace to help them lie perfectly in the world of technology, without stressing and pursuing older days of it without internet of things.

References

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