SECURING IOT ENVIRONMENTS: A HOLISTIC INVESTIGATION OF CYBER THREATS, VULNERABILITIES, AND TECHNOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

As a result of the swift development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the world has just passed another stage of technical evolution that joined different fields together, including healthcare, academia, manufacturing, and infrastructure. Nonetheless, this explosive development has resulted in severe cyber security defects as well since IoT environments would be appealing to the hackers, data breaches, and manipulations of the systems. This paper used a multi-method research design as it involves a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), surveys in quantitative studies, semi-structured qualitative interviews to investigate cybersecurity threats and protection in IoT systems. The SLR that analyzed 61 articles in credible electronic libraries found typical threats like malware, phishing, and DDoS attacks, unauthorized access, and poor encryption. Defining 210 IoT stakeholders among them system engineers, IT administrators, and policymakers, a survey indicates that missing user training, budget limitations, and difficulties in implementation are the main problems. Expert interviews emphasized on industry issues with security, especially on compliance and inadequate security infrastructures. To address these concerns, this paper is proposing the Multi-layered IoT Security and Defense (MIoT-SD) model that puts emphasis on four levels of security, namely, Device Security, Network Security, Application and Platform Security and Governance and Awareness. The model will deliver a scalable framework to support the improvement of IoT ecosystem security, the finer threat detection, the ability to respond to incidents faster, as well as the increased compliance and awareness to the end-users. The study provides important perspectives on the IoT security and proposes effective ways of mitigating the current threats as they arise.