Internet of Things Security Research: A Rehash of Old Ideas or New Intellectual Challenges?

TL;DR

This paper examines whether IoT security challenges are merely extensions of existing security issues or if they present fundamentally new problems requiring novel solutions, highlighting similarities and differences with traditional IT security.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of classic IT security and IoT security, identifying which problems are solvable with existing principles and which demand new security mechanisms.

Findings

Many IoT security issues resemble traditional IT security problems.

Certain IoT-specific challenges require innovative security approaches.

The paper clarifies the scope of existing security principles in IoT contexts.

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a new computing paradigm that spans wearable devices, homes, hospitals, cities, transportation, and critical infrastructure. Building security into this new computing paradigm is a major technical challenge today. However, what are the security problems in IoT that we can solve using existing security principles? And, what are the new problems and challenges in this space that require new security mechanisms? This article summarizes the intellectual similarities and differences between classic information technology security research and IoT security research.