Biblio

Modern embedded IoT devices are an attractive target for cyber attacks. For example, they can be used to disable entire factories and ask for ransom. Recovery of compromised devices is not an easy task, because malware can subvert the original software and make itself persistent. In addition, many embedded devices do not implement remote recovery procedures and, therefore, require manual intervention.Recent proposals from NIST and TCG define concepts and building blocks for cyber resilience: protection, detection and recovery. In this paper, we describe a system which allows implementing cyber resilient IoT devices that can be recovered remotely and timely. The proposed architecture consists of trusted data monitoring, local and remote attack detection, and enforced connections to remote services as building blocks for attack detection and recovery. Further, hardware- and software-based implementations of such a system are presented.

Today 2.9 billion people, or 40% of the world's population are online. By 2020, at least 40 billion more devices will become smart via embedded processors. The impact of such Internet of Things (IoT) on our society will be extraordinary. It will influence most consumer and business sectors, impact education, healthcare and safety. However, it certainly will also pose a challenge from a security point of view. Not only will the devices themselves become more complex, also the interaction between devices, the networks and the variance in topology will grow. Finally, with increasing amounts of data and assets at stake the incentive for attackers will increase. The costs of cyber attacks in such setting are estimated to reach about 2 trillion USD by 2020. Today, the IoT is just beginning to emerge. Unfortunately, when looking at its security, there is lots of room for improvement. Exploits reported at a steady pace clearly suggest that security is a major challenge when the world wants to successfully switch from an IoT hype to a real IoT deployment. Security, and security risk awareness, insufficiently present in today's consumer and developer mindset, are only a starting point. Once the requirement for strong security is widely accepted, there will be still the economical question of who is going to pay for security and its maintenance. Without enforcing certain standards by means of third party evaluation this problem is expected to be hard to get under control.