Security News

International standards initiative oneM2M announced it has welcomed a range of new members as organizations around the world seek to accelerate the development of the Internet of Things market through greater interoperability. "2020 is shaping up to be a year when increased levels of collaboration between global organizations, institutions and companies really accelerate mass adoption of the IoT across a range of sectors," said oneM2M Steering Committee Chair, Enrico Scarrone.

British companies have been offered access to a £400k pot of cash to design a UK-specific "Kitemark" assurance scheme for Internet of Things products. The government grant scheme is intended to complement previous announcements, making it a legal requirement that IoT devices ship with unique, non-default passwords and for vendors to "Explicitly state" for how long security updates will be published.

Small steps can greatly increase the overall security of IoT. A better IoT security story has to be one of the most urgent priorities in all of technology. Various research has shown that security is the number one concern for enterprise IoT customers and that they would move faster on IoT programs if their concerns were allayed.

At the end of 2019 there were 7.6 billion active IoT devices, a figure which will grow to 24.1 billion in 2030, a CAGR of 11%, according to a research published by Transforma Insights. Public networks, which are dominated by cellular networks, will grow from 1.2 billion connections to 4.7 billion in 2030, growing market share from 16% to 20%. Private networks account for the balance of connections, 10% in 2019 and 8% in 2030.

KIOSK Information Systems is announcing KNECT IoT, an enhanced remote monitoring application for real-time visibility of an unattended kiosk deployment. "KIOSK president Kim Kenney notes,"The new features within KNECT IoT raises the standards on what customers can expect from their Remote Management System when they deploy digital kiosks throughout their business network and service delivery channels.

The company has launched a $100,000 bug bounty for people who can break into Azure Sphere, its security system for IoT devices. The latest, the Sphere Security Research Challenge, lets bug hunters talk directly to Microsoft's technical team as they try to break into Sphere.

With so many IoT devices in use today, security is a major issue. "The introduction of IoT into the trucking industry also brought risk into logistics and supply chains," said Sharon Reynolds, CISO at Omnitracs, which provides fleet management solutions.

Secure World is part of Microsoft's operating environment for applications that run on Azure Sphere devices that executes Microsoft security code. "Sylvie Liu, security program manager for Microsoft Security Response Center, said:"While Azure Sphere implements security upfront and by default, Microsoft recognizes security is not a one-and-done event.

Microsoft has launched a bug-bounty program for its Azure Sphere offering, which is a security suite for the internet of things that encompasses hardware, OS and cloud elements. Microsoft is offering various resources to program participants, including the Azure Sphere development kit; product documentation; direct communication channels with the Microsoft team; and other Microsoft products and services if needed.

A recently identified botnet built using the Golang programming language is targeting Linux systems, including Internet of Things devices, using a custom implant, Intezer reports. The botnet, which security researcher MalwareMustDie named Kaiji, is of Chinese origin and spreads exclusively via SSH brute force attacks, targeting the root user only.