A Survey on Security Threats and Network Vulnerabilities in Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is a group of physical objects like sensors and actuators etc. connected through the network for dynamic exchange of information for augmenting the performance of products and services. The IoT is the upcoming technology that will play a vibrant role in enhancing a number of aspects of energy industry, healthcare, business and transport etc. According to a survey, the human population will reach 7.8 billion this year and over 28 billion IoT devices will be the part of the Internet, therefore, everyone will own at least one device which can connect to the Internet. Connecting such devices is a challenging task as each device can have its security and architecture concerns. Moreover the devices in IoT have the ability to work autonomously and automatically which may cause security and privacy issues. IoT combines multiple technologies such as WSN, fiber optics, broadband, 2G/3G/4G networks etc. This makes the security procedure more difficult because each technology is vulnerable to various security threats and network vulnerabilities. Since the birth of IoT substantial development have taken place in the field of IoT but as discussed many security threats were raised due to independent nature of devices, heterogeneity of various technologies used, large quantity of data produced by the exchanges between various devices and vulnerabilities in the network and devices. In this chapter we are presenting a survey on the potential threats, attacks and vulnerabilities in IoT.