Security Threats, Attacks, and Possible Countermeasures in Internet of Things

The idea to connect everything to anything and at any point of time is what vaguely defines the concept of Internet of Things (IoT). The concept of IoT is not only about providing connectivity but also facilitating interaction among these connected things. Though the term IoT was introduced in 1999 but has drawn significant attention during the past few years. The pace at which new devices are being integrated into the system will profoundly impact the world in a good way but also poses some serious threats with regard to security and privacy. IoT in its current form is susceptible to a multitudinous set of attacks. One of the greatest concerns of IoT is to provide security assurance for the data exchange because data is vulnerable to a number of attacks by the attackers at each layer of IoT. The IoT has layered structure, where each layer provides a service. The security vary from layer to layer as each layer serves a different purpose. The aim of this paper is to analyze the various security and privacy threats related to IoT. Furthermore, this paper also discusses numerous existing security protocols operating at different layers, potential attacks, and suggested countermeasures.