Practical Security Aspects of the Internet of Things

Industry 4.0 and with that the Internet of Things (IoT) are expected to revolutionize the industrial world. The vast amount of interconnected devices bear the great opportunity to collect valuable information for advancing decision making in management and technology to improve through-life management of a product. Cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Services will revolutionize our current world through fully interconnected communication where information and services are becoming ubiquitous. The availability of information across a system of systems can be very powerful when utilized properly and harnessed adequately. The vast network of small, power-sensitive and often deeply embedded devices that are streaming potentially commercially sensitive data over long periods of time poses an entirely different type of threat than known from the conventional PC world. Adequate and sensible measures need to be taken right at the design stage of IoT devices in order to take best advantage of Industry 4.0 technology. This chapter introduces a set of key security issues related to the implementation of IoT in an industrial mechanical engineering context. A real-world example concerning remote maintenance of CNC machine tools illustrates the different threat scenarios related to IoT in practice. The paper touches on Big Data and Cloud Manufacturing but will remain focused on improving security at the Edge of IoT, i.e. where data is collected, transmitted and eventually transferred back to the physical actuators. The aim of this chapter is to introduce a generic overview of real-world IoT security issues as well as giving a deeper technical example-supported insight into practical considerations for designing IoT systems for practical use in business.