IoT connects the physical world with the digital using sensors and actuators. With everything around us being connected to the internet, we are now living in a world where everything including your home appliances to agricultural equipment to smart city sensors to electricity grids and automobiles can be remotely hacked into by attackers.

The IoT revolution has significant upside for the economy, but it also opens doors for large scale disruption like never before. An attacker can reach out from across the internet into your home and wreak havoc into the physical systems that provide the underpinnings of modern life.

IoT technology is essentially the coming together of multifarious systems that can be exploited by attackers. Moreover, the complexity of the IoT system makes it harder to comprehend all the moving parts, which can give way to attackers exploiting security loopholes.

The IoT architecture is broadly comprised of the IoT device layer, the IoT gateway layer, and the IoT server layer. Each layer comes with its own attack surface area. The IoT edge devices monitor the environment and gather data using sensors and actuators. The IoT gateway layer takes the data from the IoT devices, aggregates it, converts it into digital form. It may also perform some analytics before sending the data across the internet to the IoT server, which could be a third-party cloud, where data is stored and big data analytics are carried out to gain insights and predict patterns.

From an IoT security perspective, the gateway layer is critical and a prime target for hackers as it is the first point of entry from the internet down to the IoT devices. The gateway layer serves as an interface between the internet and the physical devices, and is also responsible for firmware updates to these edge devices. It is, therefore, critically important that we fortify and secure the gateway layer to block out any malicious traffic. At GRM, it is our aim to help you build an IoT architecture that is functional, scalable, available, and maintainable.

We also conduct security assessments for applications that connect to your IoT systems, and highlight any risks related to the stealing of user credentials and edge devices manipulation. We will also scan your cloud environment for any vulnerabilities that could give attackers access to privileged data. As IoT systems gather reams of data, we will help you navigate the regulatory landscape so that you are compliant with the prevailing data protection laws.