Tips to Develop Secure Internet of Things (IoT) Applications

What is the Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing rapidly because of the increasing use of the internet, technological advancement and the low cost of connection. Internet of Things is an environment where objects, animals, and people are given unique identities and the data is transferred over a network without the help of human and computer interaction. It helps to connect any device to the internet with an On and Off switch. Internet of Things IoT tutorial is the collection of everyday objects that are connected to the internet.

IoT enables the exchange of data in a more secure way. Now it has become easier for the enterprises to create their own IoT applications and use it to their fullest. There are a lot of ready to use internet of things platforms which will help you to develop applications more easily. Internet of Things IoT tutorial is growing bigger every day.

How does it work

Internet of Things (IoT) requires a huge database that catalogs and tracks objects using few technologies. Using these wireless recognition systems and traceability, the objects can communicate information to other objects or nodes.

Technologies of IoT

The major technologies used are listed below

• RFID
• Wifi
• Barcode e QR code
• ZigBee
• Sensors and smartphones

Areas of application of IoT

Internet of Things will have its effect on every home and business on the earth in the next 15 years. As per a research in 2008 the number of things that were connected to the internet was greater than the people living on the planet. In 2020 it is expected to be about 50 billion. IoT applications use technology to improve our comfort, use less energy to do a task and gives us a great control over our lives whether at home or at work. There are few important application areas of IoT tutorial. They are listed below with few internets of things examples

Building and Home automation

IoT training offers a wide range of applications to monitor and control the building and homes. Few internets of things examples are

• Access Control
• Light and temperature control
• Connected appliances
• Energy minimization

Smart Cities

IoT training offers a lot of applications to reduce the cost and save the resource to develop smart cities. It includes applications for

• Residential E meters
• Traffic control system
• Smart street lights
• Surveillance cameras

Manufacturing Industry

IoT applications in manufacturing field will help to ease the process and make time for your next internet of things manufacturing process. Applications are used for

• Flow Optimization
• Real-Time Inventory
• Asset Tracking
• Employee Safety

Wearables

Wearable field monitor, record and give feedback on you and your environment. It is mainly divided into two section – Fitness and Environment, Health. Smartwatch and location tracking also come under wearables. These IoT applications save energy and cost.

Health Care

IoT applications in the health care field help to improve the quality and accessibility creating a new revolution in the field. Technologies are used in

• Remote Monitoring
• Ambulance Telemetry
• Access Control
• Predictive Maintenance

Automotive

IoT offers a wide range of innovative technologies for modern automobiles. It includes

• Wireless connectivity
• Advanced sensor networks
• Machine to machine communication
• Infotainment

All these innovations will make them more efficient than before.

Smart Supply Chain

The supply chain is becoming smarter these days. Internet of Things applications for the supply chain includes tracking goods, sharing inventory information and others.

Smart Farming

Smart farming does not fit into the other categories like health or industry. But due to its increased importance, the Internet of Things has extended its application to this field. As of now, there are not many applications for this field. But in the near future, it will gather large-scale attention and a lot of applications will be developed.

Building Internet of Things IoT Applications

Few important questions for developers regarding the development of applications in the Internet of Things are

• What is the best way to build an application using the Internet of Things?
• What are the skills needed to develop such applications?
• What is the starting point of such applications?

Below points will give you the answers to these questions

• The starting point for this internet of things applications are the things themselves. The internet of things devices has one or more communication protocols, a low power processor and some form of the embedded operating system. These devices may connect directly to the internet or to an internet gateway device.
• The next step is the ingestion tier, where the software and internet of things infrastructure run in a corporate data center. It receives and organizes the data. It also manages things and updates the firmware frequently.
• The third step is the Analytics tier. In this step, the application transfers the organized data. This is where the user can view the end user tier application as a web app or a mobile app or an enterprise application.

As a developer, you need to focus mainly on the last two tiers. But most of the developers will lack the tools to continue with the ingestion tier.

There is a lot of ready-made Internet of Things platform to build applications. This internet of things platforms makes it easy for the developer to build applications including an ingestion tier, analytics tier, and an API to transfer the communication between the platform and application built.

Many companies provide such internet of things platforms. Few examples of such companies include Xively, Mnubo, Bug Labs. More reputed companies like Microsoft also use the Internet of Things solutions to their enterprise.

This internet of things platforms deals with the enrolment of things, data ingestion, and authentication. This internet of things platforms can be used by companies of small scale as well as large scale.

An example of one such internet of things platform is given below

Xively internet of things platform has the following elements

• Storage for archived time series
• Messaging and routing protocols
• Trust engine
• Searchable directory
• User management and device management for administrators and other users
• API’s to allow easy access of data
• Infrastructure and application security
• Business intelligence dashboards

Xively also has a collection of connectors. You can build your own application in your own language and access your data in Xively platform.

Examples of the internet of things applications built with cloud platforms include application to monitor the stock level in freezers, application to monitor the water quality from remote sensors. Such internet of things applications reduces the manual work and need for the staff to visit the places.

How does the Internet of Things development Platform works

It is so easy and simple to create an IoT application. Go to http://dweet.io in any mobile device and click on the ‘Try Now’ button. Your device will get a name which consists of two random words. These two words will be separated by a hyphen. Then go to any browser and type http://dweet.io/follow/(your hyphenated name). After this, you will be directed to a dashboard which shows your mobile location and the angle of your device.

Any application can follow the device that is tweeting and it just consumes data. To dweet a device you should have a good knowledge of C, C++ or Java according to the operating system it runs.

Creation of Internet of Things platform in IBM Bluemix

Here let’s see an example of creating an IoT application for the temperature sensor

• First, go to the Bluemix site and sign up if you have not already registered with the site.
• After logging in you will be directed to a screen which appears like the screen in the picture below. Select the Catalog option.
• You will be directed to the Catalog page and here you must click on the “Internet of Things Application Foundation Starter”. Clicking on this option will help to collect the data from the sensor.
• You will get a screen as you see in the picture below. Enter the name of your application here.
• Click on the Create button. You will take to the next screen where you should click on “View Application Overview”
• Next comes the screen of your application. This screen gives all the details of your application like how many instances are active, what is the memory used and where it is connected to.
• Make sure that the circle in green color which is Application Health shows that the App is running. If the app is running then you can click on the URL.
• You will be directed to a page where you need to click “Go to your Node ReD flow editor”
• Clicking on this option will take you to the IoT application editor page. There will be a default sample for you. There are different input nodes of IoT application and each node is numbered in the picture below.
• These input nodes are the points where the application receives data from different sensors.
• Output nodes are the ones through which the data is sent to other application or device.
• There are also many other features.
• Click on the link for the temperature sensor simulator and it will take you to a screen as shown in the picture below
• The pink circle is the unique device ID and the Bluemix will pass this to the sensor through the device ID.
• You can adjust the temperature using the up and down arrows
• Copy and paste the device ID to Notepad and convert all the capital letters into small letters and remove colons.
• After doing this click on Node 3 which is the IoT Application Foundation
• Copy the ID from the Notepad and paste it in the Device ID field
• Click Ok and then Click Deploy.
• If the temperature is less than or equal to 40 you will get the output of the temperature reading combined with Within safe limits in the debug console panel on the right side.

Tips for developing secure IoT applications

Whenever an application is developed using IoT developers are worried that it can be exploited by hackers. So it is always important to develop secure applications.

Here are a few tips to make the Internet of Things Application development more secure

• Use developers with the right skills

Many of the insecurities of the internet of things applications are found to be developed from the internet of things hardware device vendors who offer software to work with their internet of things products. These vendors do not have technically skilled developers. These developers will not be well trained in internet ready coding. This is one of the main reason for the insecure internet of things applications.

• Use reputed IoT application platforms

There are a huge number of companies offering IoT application platforms. Each platform has different components to produce a secure IoT application. The security framework is an important factor. Developers should know how to use them properly.

• IoT tutorial device Firmware security

The main difference between mobile or web apps and IoT apps is that they interact with things. There may be security inabilities in the internet connected hardware device’s firmware. IoT apps should have a function to update the firmware security more often.

• Safe from Physical attacks

IoT application interacts with a lot of things and so they are difficult to secure physically. Therefore the internet of things data stored should be encrypted and it should be made hard to remove.

• Secure hardware components

Hardware vendors will also help to improve the security of the internet of things applications. Because of the secured hardware components, information will not be shared unless its authentication is proved.

• Best Standard security practices

Internet of Things IoT apps are usually more complex and are made up of many components

. So before taking any internet of things cybersecurity measures you should think of the app as a whole and see whether it affects the other components of the application.

Conclusion

The internet of things future has started. Internet of Things IoT tutorial is becoming more popular and it has a great impact on our day to day lives. It will have an unpredictable development in the coming years. You should learn and understand the internet of things opportunities and threats to the Internet of Things IoT tutorial. Educate yourself about the internet of things and see what the potential impact is on your everyday work and life.

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