RoRo's blog

The Internet of things (IoT) is here, billions of things are already out there and 100x more devices are going to be deployed in the next few years. They improve our life and reduce cost in areas like Lighting, Health, Sensing, and Connected Video (see more here), however privacy, security, and authenticity are often just assumed. While we all want our personal health monitors to be private and secure, a simple temperature sensor seems not to deserve the same level of security. The picture changes though if we start to act and rely on the data coming from this temperature sensor. For example, a hacked temperature reading might turn on the AC in your house resulting in extra cost or, if it is widespread, cause power outages if a whole neighbourhood is attacked. A hacked temperature sensor in a power plant can be much worse. The consequences can range from costly to disastrously, for example, causing a piece of equipment to overheat and fail. As we stride to build these devices as single chips, security has to be architected in upfront. Security is paramount for any IoT, even for a benign device like a connected temperature sensor.