Achieving Security in the Internet of Things through Expansion of the Partnership Model
William Diehl, Forrest B. Hare · 2018
There are countless connected devices and applications in the Internet of Things (IoT), in areas ranging from health to automotive and industrial, to energy, security, and logistics. Currently, a lack of security within the IoT presents significant cybersecurity risks, including the compromise of sensitive information and damage to infrastructure. As a way to overcome security challenges, this paper proposes expanding the current public-private partnership framework for cybersecurity to one that more effectively encompasses personal-level considerations. To be successful, this new public-private-personal partnership model will require simultaneous advancements in three co-equal domains: technology, policy, and society. Specifically, technology adjustments consist of upgrades to device access and authorization; policy adjustments consist of changes to cooperation regimes and regulations at the federal, state, and local level; and societal adjustments involve public education about vulnerabilities and changes in attitudes toward individual roles in security. In this research, we leverage two examples of emerging IoT applications: health monitoring and smart-grid. For each application and related sector, we outline the security challenges, discuss the shortcomings of existing public-private partnerships, and make recommendations for the expansion of existing partnerships to the personal level.