Imagine you jump into your smart car, order “home” and prepare to chill with your smartphone. Soon you realize that the car is taking you to half-abandoned city suburbs instead of your smart house where your smart kettle must already be boiling. You try to stop it manually but every manual operation has been blocked by the anti-theft.
Sounds terrifying, right? Yet this is the reality we are quickly approaching. One of the most prominent examples of the Internet of Things (IoT), self-driving cars are already there, and are projected to make 95% of all new vehicles sold by 2040. The growing presence of IoT in our lives raises reasonable concerns and fears that make us dubious about the future of the technology.
Hackable Cars, Hearts and More
In 2015 (three years ago!), a team of researchers managed to seize control over a Jeep SUV. They found a firmware update vulnerability and were able to make the car move slower, speed up and even change its course. Another creepy story: St. Jude's cardiac devices were found hackable in 2017. The company addressed the issue by developing a software patch that fixed that particular vulnerability. The question is, will they be faster than hackers next time?
The two cases demonstrate well enough how much is already at stake when it comes to IoT. These devices are also easily vulnerable due to the very nature of the technology behind them. The IoT firmware is organized in a network which means that one can easily manipulate it, should a single vulnerability be exploited.
The Today and Tomorrow of IoT Security
As for today, no efficient solution for IoT vulnerabilities has been found. Producing complex chips, running thousands of tests prior to manufacturing, authenticating and encrypting data, releasing updates and forcing backups on a frequent basis are expensive yet fairly weak measures that the industry have come up with so far.
However, there is one technology that is capable of providing a previously unknown data security level: blockchain. To put it short, blockchain can decentralize an IoT firmware network, taking the authority from its center (server) and distributing it across the devices (nodes). Typically, hackers aim at a server to take control over the network. Thanks to blockchain, a behavior norm can be introduced, upon which the nodes can create a group consensus. If the behavior of a particular node suddenly fails to comply with the norm, it will be automatically isolated.
Rescue On Its Way
The industry has been inquiring into blockchain as a means of increasing IoT security for quite some time now. Last year, several tech companies, including giants and startups, formed the “Trusted IoT Alliance” to work on the development of a blockchain-based IoT security mechanism. They claim to be establishing an "open-source blockchain protocol to support IoT technology in major industries worldwide." It certainly makes sense to watch their progress.
A blockchain should meet two requirements to solve the IoT security problem: high performance and true decentralization. One such blockchain example, genEOS, is already on the way. Apart from the ability to boost IoT security, genEOS is designed as a platform for the development of Dapps that can provide solutions for many industries. The project team intends to put blockchain to action and finally let businesses benefit from using it at its full capacity.