Android Things Promises to Close IoT Security Holes

IoT or the Internet of Things has been to this point a seriously unsecured cluster-flop for the most part.  Millions of insecure devices are in our homes and businesses, and these devices may be eavesdropped, recording audio or video, performing a DDoS attack, or being leveraged as an easy access pivot point into your network for further exploitation

Thankfully, progress is being made in this area by Google, who released a new software development platform called Android Things and it is targeted at IoT device development. Things is designed to leverage the power of the Android platform, which is not limited to just phones.  Things allows for rapid prototyping that leads to full products, and provides both security and scalability.

One of the major improvements provided by Things is provisioning of automatic security and other updates automatically, without user intervention required.  Update intervals are expected to be between one to two weeks.  This is a serious improvement over the current expectation that users learn how to and remember to perform periodic software and firmware upgrades themselves.

Interested developers can get a Things-certified development kit for $199.  Raspberry Pi can also be used as a development platform.

For more information, see the article at Tech Republic, or at Google’s Android Developer site.

 

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About the Author:

I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com

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