The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly progressing, and it is estimated that about 75.5 billion globally deployed devices will exist by 2025. These devices are, however, not adequately secured. Thus, the IoT ecosystem becomes vulnerable to potential cyberattacks.
Security certifications must be given to old and new devices to minimize intrusion threats. It ensures that stakeholders across the ecosystem will trust the security capabilities of IoT products. Certification bodies are crucial in setting and maintaining assurance standards for security. Criteria for defining device components’ capabilities relative to meeting specific security requirements. However, there is a considerable diversity of devices with multiplying manufacturers, and scant knowledge about cybersecurity on the part of consumers creates problems. The certification bodies will develop new frameworks and requirements to address these threats’ dynamic changes and the complexity involved with product use.
Testing laboratories face challenges with flexibility in having rigorous processes capable of addressing market variations. These processes are usually expensive and take time to develop, requiring unique competencies. They drive expenses and delays into the coffers of product manufacturers, thus impacting profit and extending the time spent on the market for certified products. This discourages manufacturers from certification, a fact that, in the end, weakens the overall security of IoT devices.
Thus, stakeholders must collaborate on a unified certification model to improve efficiencies and accessibility. Among the promising methodologies for addressing this challenge would be SESIP (Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms), which simplifies the certification process. SESIP facilitates the certification of single components, which are now re-employed in various devices across markets. Thus, their redundancies are minimized as any previously certified parts can be reused into new devices without re-evaluations.
The essence of composing and reusing trouble-free certificates makes it possible for stakeholders to further their goals of augmenting security, streamlining innovation, and ensuring significant cost savings with SESIP. The methodology brings a broader and more efficient certification ecosystem in which IoT devices become secure and scalable across diverse applications. Safeguarding the connected future requires such a paradigm to be applied inevitably to IoT, which just now happens to evolve.
