Smart Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Secure: IoT Security Considerations for Manufacturers

CITO Research examines the need to establish identity and trust in the IoT and explains why PKI is the basis for the right solution

The 50 billion devices that will comprise the IoT in five short years must be capable of identifying themselves to each other, which means that device manufacturers will have to create, install, and manage identities for a growing number of devices. But just how are manufacturers going to do that? One logical answer is to use existing public key infrastructure (PKI).

PKI is a way to leverage proven cryptographic algorithms to achieve a number of information security principles, including authentication, encryption, and data integrity. For years, PKI has worked quietly behind the scenes to enable independent parties to communicate securely over the Internet. It has also been proven to scale to accommodate large numbers of servers and users. This CITO Research paper examines the need to establish identity and trust in the IoT and explains why PKI is the basis for the right solution.

In this white paper you'll learn about:

• Security dimensions of PKI and its benefits for IoT deployments
• Considerations for manufacturers integrating PKI, including trust models, PKI deployment options, device lifecycles, and concerns around scalability
• Early PKI for IoT use cases that apply these considerations to real world deployments