After the launch of 5G technology, IoT devices are expected to grow 2X times to reach 25.44 billion devices by 2030, per a report. While at one end of the spectrum, these ever-increasing numbers undoubtedly anchor the narrative of greater digital dwelling, it raises a concern about cybersecurity that we cannot afford to miss. Why? Because most of the IoT devices are developed using edge technology. The drawback of edge technology is the limitation in processing and refining the data and protecting it well. Suppose enterprises are launching IoT devices and want to keep that in check. In that case, it will amount to developing and deploying specific data servers and data dissemination channels in layers to protect the user’s identity.
The result would be that the cost of developing, deploying, and operating an industrial-scale fleet of connected devices would choke enterprises financially.
As a result, the need of the hour is to set up scalable systems that protect data abuse on IoT devices and scale operations. IoT Cloud-Based services are becoming an amenable solution because they can provide ad-hoc security architecture, cloud services with low-level APIs, and convoluted integration with enterprise data and applications.
How Will IoT Cloud-Based Services Help?
1. Establish Better Privacy and Authorization
With the influx of IoT devices, planning a better access control management of data for all interconnected devices has become necessary. However, the key problem is that most IoT servers hosting their specific devices appear like independent islands. As a result, processes like edge devices collecting and processing data, sending those data for processing, and finally using the data for analytics and visualization have become extremely cost-intensive. One of the reasons why Google Cloud IoT Core is shutting down.
Right now, instead of setting up single servers, every server hosting its specific IOT devices will face limited memory, storage, and computational power challenges. However, when cloud-based IoT systems are integrated, they cater to the dynamics of PC and mobile phone development. It will abstract data storage functions and processing and exert less load on the servers, making the operations cost-efficient and scalable. For example, this practice can significantly impact the low volume of industrial products of OEMs that have to develop device software stacks in-house to optimize product performance from a security and operations standpoint.
IoT Cloud-based services that revolve around DP-a-a-S offering provide a plug-n-play interface using Docker and other technologies that can help create better customization for the IoT product. Some providers, like MicroEJ, have helped developers write platform-independent codes and run a predefined application with custom access control and privacy. Such efficacies have given more room for IoTs to rise and shine under the protection of the Cloud.
2. Safety to Devices
The safety of devices is another concern in IoT devices because the data paths are defined like a spider web. As a result, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. When you are availing comprehensive service packages from the solution providers, you might need the support of savvy developers who are solving just one problem. For example, the service provider Goliath is a good example to quote here, solving only data movement and processing problems. However, there is a need to streamline completeness, where access controls should be well acknowledged along with data movement and processing. Cloud-based IoT services are using OAuth 2.0, which is a token-based identity authentication system that protects a wider IoT ecosystem. In this way, it protects the IOT ecosystem from hacks and compromises.
3. Anchor Hardware Security
Providers like Microsoft Azure have developed a ready-made solution for the IoT ecosystem, integrating TPMs or Trusted Platform Modules and TEE or Trusted Execution Environment Models. These toolsets solve IoT devices’ existing integration problems when they operate independently on a host server with their feature-rich access. However, with the Cloud as the backdrop, IoT devices can now experience disk encryption and password protection while hosted by a common cloud server.
Conclusion:
With the rise of IOT devices reaching new highs, Cloud-based IOT services will help trigger limited access control to sensitive data that has often been compromised. Hence, it would not be an understatement to say that Cloud-based IOT services are the key to the future, where you can protect the customer’s data and provide them with scalable features at a fraction of the cost while hosting on Cloud-based platforms.
