IoT Security: Experience Is an Expensive Teacher

This chapter examines the reasons for the poor state of Internet of Things (IoT) security, reviews some of the initiatives under way to address this situation, and examines sources of guidance and other practical measures that are available to developers, vendors, and end-users with the intention of establishing a good basic level of security “hygiene” across the board. It focuses on the work of the IoT Security Foundation. The need to address the challenges of IoT security is widely recognized and many initiatives have been launched to do so by different classes of stakeholders. The chapter reviews some of these initiatives, identifying three main types of stakeholder: governments, who are keen for their economies to reap the potential benefits of IoT; standards bodies extending their coverage to include IoT topics; and groupings of developer, service provider, and user organizations who recognize the collective benefit in working together.