The Criticality of IoT Penetration Testing for a Remote Workforce

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gradually transforming the way people go about their daily chores or how enterprises conduct their activities. It is the harbinger of everything ‘smart’ the world is aspiring for. The days are not far when IoT can make science fiction a reality to a great extent. It improves efficiency, productivity, comfort, convenience, responsiveness, and management, besides reducing cost and waste. The Internet of Things has the capability to transform homes and offices and help create islands of efficiency amidst the presence of legacy systems. The IoT revolution is mostly visible in the way employees of enterprises have been using the IoT-enabled devices remotely to connect with their offices.

Today’s employees who are wont to bring their digital devices like laptops, tablets or smartphones to offices have graduated to bringing IoT-enabled devices like e-readers, wearables, game consoles, or even smart printers and coffee makers. Even if these devices have given convenience and efficiency a new meaning, they bring with them a new set of challenges involving cybersecurity. If earlier the security teams at offices were tasked with securing the company’s assets and the devices brought by employees, today, the challenge is formidable. In the new IoT-enabled ecosystem, security teams have to deal with devices they are not used to handling earlier. These include coffee makers, smartwatches, fitness trackers, and remotes, among others. Thus, the IoT-enabled devices may have attendant security concerns that many enterprises are not prepared to deal with. And if left on their own, these devices can play havoc in the day and age of cybercrime.

The present BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) protocol being run at enterprises needs to be scaled up to include the advent of IoT-enabled devices. So, let us understand how organizations can strengthen their security systems to ensure the safety of IoT devices for a remote workforce. This calls for conducting stringent IoT testing across the digital landscape.

The value of IoT security and how IoT security testing is the key

A study by Gartner, the global research and advisory firm, states that the number of IoT-enabled devices is likely to cross 20 billion by 2020. With the increased integration of IoT into people’s lives, there will be a greater dependence on such devices to derive data and draw inferences from the same. However, this also increases the security risk from such devices - for individuals, groups, enterprises, organizations, and entities. The risks can be varied and annoying. For example, cybercriminals can break into an IoT ecosystem and capture the video feeds as well as block access to the real users of such feeds. Also, in radiation monitoring devices, cybercriminals can exploit any inherent vulnerability to target critical infrastructure. The field of medicine is one potential area where IoT has made rapid ingress with smart wearables to monitor critical parameters. Again, the lack of security testing here can give a long rope to cybercriminals to make good with sensitive patient related data.

To pre-empt cybercriminals from wreaking havoc on the IoT and connected ecosystem, enterprises should put increased focus on IoT penetration testing. This way they can identify the vulnerabilities or glitches within such systems and fix them. For a remote workforce dependent on the successful performance of such devices, stringent IoT testing can take care of any potential security issue.

What is IoT penetration testing?

In this type of testing, an assessment is made on the usage of various components within an IoT-enabled device to make it safer. However, given that such devices have numerous interfaces with third-party devices or software suites, it is indeed challenging to plan an all-encompassing IoT testing approach for devices with so many end-points.

Benefits of IoT device testing

Testing IoT applications, especially through pen testing can have a host of benefits for enterprises.

Strengthening device security: The vulnerabilities within devices can be identified and fixed. Thus, the machinations of cybercriminals can be nipped in the bud and sensitive information safeguarded.

Prevention of unauthorized usage: IoT devices should have multiple layers of security to prevent any unauthorized usage. However, glitches within such devices can be exploited to gain access to sensitive or critical areas or databases causing data breach or worse, endangering the critical systems controlled by such devices.

Eliminating elevation of privileges: The usage of IoT devices in organizations comes with a layered approach having a proper distribution of privileges. At each level, the person entrusted with deriving data and insights from such devices has access that is not available to everyone. This ensures the device continues to function seamlessly and generate the necessary outcomes required of it. However, the lack of IoT security testing can allow cybercriminals to exploit the access privileges and steal sensitive personal or business information. This can have serious security implications in areas where the successful functioning of such devices has extensible security dimensions. A robust pen test can search for vulnerabilities and secure them from further exploitation.

Strengthen data privacy: The IoT-enabled devices must adhere to stringent industry regulations failing which enterprises using such devices as a part of their IT infrastructure can face censure, penalties, or an outright ban. The application of a robust IoT testing methodology can enforce such protocols thereby ensuring data privacy.

Setting strong encryption: The software suite running any IoT device connects to the servers of various third-party applications to exchange data and information. If the data exchanged between devices or servers are not encrypted, they can be easily snooped into and exploited. The IoT penetration testing validates the effectiveness of encryption ensuring the transmission of data among such devices remains safe and secure.

Conclusion

The IoT landscape has become very complicated with myriad devices having sundry end-points conducting data transmission intermittently. This has made the job of developers and security teams challenging. However, ensuring the security and performance of IoT-enabled devices is underpinned on understanding the complexities of device platforms and conducting stringent penetration testing.

IoT Testing is Driving the Future of Smart Connectivity

The future of our tech-driven world is going to be exciting. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), or Robotics shall bring conveniences and improve our quality of life greatly. Among these, the Internet of Things or IoT shall be instrumental in ushering the ‘age of machines’ in the true sense. If we go by Gartner’s prediction, then by 2020, the world is likely to see use of around 20.4 billion connected devices. In fact, the Internet of Things is expected to be a part of every industry segment and bring about a radical change in the way we live in the near future. Since the world would be virtually dependent on these devices, their performance, reliability, availability, and user experience should be top-notch. However, ensuring these at all times can be challenging and warrants the conduct of rigorous IoT testing.

What is IoT?

The Internet of Things is a network of devices, digital elements, vehicles, home appliances, and other gadgets that are connected to the internet to exchange data and information. The enablers for IoT include systems such as motion sensors, thermostats, smart switches, leak detectors, dimmers, doorbells, and smart outlets. Presently, only 0.06% of IoT-enabled devices are functioning globally and there is a great potential to expand the value chain. Today, around 60 technologies and Radio Frequency formats are in use to make IoT a reality. Among these, WiFi and cellular are the prominent ones. With the emergence of new wireless technology standards, enhancements to LTE (Long Term Evolution) and LTE-Advanced protocols, and the advent of 5G, the need for internet of things testing has assumed salience.

The future is going to be defined by smart technologies. These are needed to address the present-day challenges related to the lack of quality, availability, and speed. Thus, to manage the functioning of smart systems a la IoT and ensure they work to their highest levels of efficiency, IoT testing is the way forward. The following examples can emphasize the dire need for maintaining quality in IoT devices.

If there is a fire in a smart home (enabled through IoT devices), the smart systems (smoke sensors) should detect the smoke and send an alert to the authorities, apart from the owner(s). This can only be possible if various devices connected to the IoT grid function at their optimal level and communicate with each other effectively. In the absence of such coordinated functioning of devices, the smoke will remain undetected leading to a fire hazard.

Again, if an automatic vehicle fails to detect an obstruction (a pedestrian, vehicle, or any other object) due to the malfunctioning of its sensor(s), the vehicle will fail to stop in time leading to an accident.

The two examples have highlighted how various connected devices within the IoT ecosystem need to function in a coordinated manner.

Challenges for testing of IoT devices

The ways things are, it is predicted that the Internet of Things ecosystem is going to outweigh and outperform the combined numbers of smartphones, desktops, laptops, and wearables in the world. It will ultimately be businesses, more than governments or individuals, that are going to drive the adoption of IoT. This will increase the scope for IoT testing wherein developers and testers have to consider factors like the available bandwidth, the performance of device circuitry, or the battery level, among others.

Further, in IoT, there would be plenty of unusual device types. These include home appliances, which may or may not have robust interfaces with digital systems like sensors, thermostats, and others. Thus, with the presence of such a diverse set of devices, selecting the best IoT testing approach can be tricky. The other types of challenges in testing IoT applications are

l  Lack of standardization of devices and associated systems

l  Insufficient battery life of devices

l  Network issues

l  Threats to data security

l  Need for omnichannel testing

Testing requirements for IoT enabled components

To drive quality into the IoT ecosystem, the components forming the ecosystem should be validated in terms of performance, reliability, usability, security, and customer experiences. Let us understand the key testing requirements for IoT components.

At the device level: The IoT testing framework at the device level should target areas like device properties, schedules, power modes, serial protocol, and connectivity.

At the cloud level: The testers would look to automate and integrate the components into the ecosystem and check their effectiveness. The areas to look at would include security, performance, scalability, reliability, data governance, and data privacy.

End-to-End testing: This comprehensive IoT testing approach would entail executing automated tests combining applications, devices, and the cloud. Importantly, the testers should test the IoT system in real-time involving multiple conditions.

Simulation of the smart system through service virtualization

Since the success of an IoT ecosystem depends on the seamless interoperability of embedded devices across platforms, networks, geographies, and device states, testing becomes a challenge. However, with test automation and simulation of the above-mentioned environments, testers can identify the issues such systems can face in the real world.

Security testing of IoT systems

Arguably the biggest challenge to confront IoT devices is security. Since humongous sets of data are exchanged between appliances and embedded sensors, any vulnerability can be exploited. In fact, hackers can manipulate the devices to work according to their instructions. For example, a bank’s alarm and cameras may be deactivated by such people to commit a heist. Hence, any IoT device testing should focus on strengthening the security aspect by identifying and removing all bottlenecks and vulnerabilities. The focus should be on encrypting the data transfer mechanism.

Conclusion

The smart world of the future would be based to a large extent on the success of IoT devices. Also, any future challenges involving data security need to be tackled on a war footing through rigorous IoT testing. It is only when every sinew of the IoT ecosystem runs in harmony, the future of smart connectivity can be ensured.

How can IoT Testing be improved with the right framework

With digital technology driving the world and making the lives of people easier than ever before, the quest is for making it more decentralized, distributed, and easy to handle. This is where the Internet of Things (IoT) comes across as a technology of the future. It entails changing the lives of people by taking computing to the physical realm. This may include devices, buildings, vehicles, sensors, electronics, and networks, among others. Even though IoT brings many benefits including increased automation of tasks, running such interconnected devices flawlessly can be a challenge. This is due to the heterogeneity of such devices and their need to display coordinated behavior in real-time. So, let us first understand what IoT is all about?

What is IoT?

Here, physical elements comprising buildings, vehicles, home appliances, and other elements are embedded with software, electronics, and sensors to exchange data and information over the internet. These devices are increasingly adopted by the industry to derive a range of benefits. It may include cost reduction and increased revenue generation through automated operations and improved efficiency. The speed of adoption of such devices is driven by various factors such as increased bandwidth and processing power, a growing pool of tech-savvy consumers, the advent of new analytical tools, and the low cost of sensors. Given the competitive nature of today’s business environment, enterprises are looking to generate greater revenues and deliver better customer experiences.

However, notwithstanding the slew of benefits such devices bring to the consumers, building them in the form of a network remains a challenging and complex activity. Since such devices have interfaces with a lot of digital elements, there can be issues of interoperability, security, scalability, coordination, and conformation. Nevertheless, IoT is on its way to become arguably the biggest opportunity for software development and testing. The IoT ecosystem will have an eclectic amalgamation of products like home appliances, embedded sensors, buildings, vehicles, and actuators, among other things. To enable the smooth functioning of such an ecosystem, IoT testing has become a critical requirement of the industry. If statistics are to be believed, then by 2020, around 30 billion products might become a part of the IoT ecosystem (Source: McKinsey.)

What are the benefits of IoT testing?

The importance of IoT-enabled devices in the digital ecosystem meant these have to be tested rigorously to gain a slew of benefits. These include

·         Making the business future-proof in terms of interoperability, adoption of technologies, scalability, security, and other parameters

·         Delivering the best user experiences across channels through automation

·         Delivering quicker access to the markets using test automation

What are the challenges for testing IoT applications?

The testing of IoT-enabled devices entails many challenges due to the presence of diverse devices and the need for their seamless coordination and collaboration. The other challenges are:

·         Dealing with the diversity of elements comprising the IoT ecosystem

·         Ensuring high security for data transmission

·         Adhering to a slew of IoT protocols viz., CoAP, XMPP, MQTT, and others

·         Achieving quick responsiveness in real-time

·         Support for scalability and interoperability

Developing the right framework for Internet of Things testing

To overcome the challenges associated with IoT device testing, a robust IoT testing framework should be put in place. Although designing such a framework would depend on the configurations of specific IoT devices to be tested, it should have some basic features.

Data Recorders: These can help in validating various IoT-enabled devices vis-a-vis their compatibility across communication layers.

Protocol Simulators: The IoT testing methodology involves working with many protocols. Protocol simulators can facilitate IoT testing when there are multiple interfaces of devices and their end-points.

Building Labs: These can help in simulating real-time experiences and deriving suitable inferences in the process.

Virtualization: Any real-time validation of the highly complex IoT application can be challenging and time-consuming. Thus, to reduce the dependency on a real-time environment, certain testing services or parameters can be virtualized. 

Any IoT testing framework should comprise a series of tests to check various layers and their interaction with each other.

Application layer: Functional testing, compatibility testing, usability and user experience testing, localization testing, and API testing.

Services layer: Interoperability testing, functional testing, and API testing.

Gateway and Network layer: Network compatibility and connectivity testing.

Sensor layer: Functional and security testing

Conclusion

The Internet of Things is going to drive the future and will have an eclectic mix of devices/elements such as datacentre, sensors, applications, and networks. Since a lot would be at stake based on the correct behavior of IoT-enabled devices, the IoT testing approach should be all-encompassing and rigorous. Hence, developing the right framework for testing IoT-enabled devices should be the priority, which in turn can ensure these devices to remain programmable, communicable, and operable across the industry.