With a vast and growing number of business, industry, consumer and civic IoT devices and systems now being used, we look at their advantages, the threats to the IoT and how we move forward in a way that maximises the benefits and security.

The Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT devices are those devices that are now present in most offices and homes that have a connection to the Internet and are, therefore, ‘smart’ and inter-connected. These devices, each of which has an IP address, could be anything from white goods and smart thermostats to CCTV cameras, medical implants, industrial controllers and building entry systems.

IoT devices transmit and collect data which can be processed in data-centres or the cloud.  IoT devices use several different communications standards and protocols to communicate with other devices.  These include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee (for low-power, short-distance communication) or message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT).

Categories

The IoT can be categorised as the consumer IoT, industrial IoT, smart homes and offices and even smart cities.

Cloud

Cloud providers also provide IoT platforms that allow IoT devices and gateways to connect with the applications used to deal with the IoT data, coordinate IoT systems and help with their functionality.

Billions

Estimates on the growing number of IoT devices vary but there is thought to be anywhere between 30 and 50 billion IoT devices worldwide which could generate more than 4 zettabytes of data this year.

The Advantages of the IoT

Devices and systems that are ‘smart’ i.e. have an internet connection have several key advantages including:

– Data can be gathered from IoT devices that can be used to improve design, operation, security and more. This can help to create new opportunities and launch new, improved products.

– They can be updated and even patched remotely and quickly without requiring physical parts to be replaced.

– Customer interaction and engagement with the product and the brand can be increased by having a smart function.

– Companies can use IoT technologies to reduce their operational costs e.g. by helping to track and monitor equipment and reduce downtime, predict errors, and reduce power consumption.

IoT Security Risks

The risks are that the Internet connection in IoT devices can, if adequate security measures are not in place, provide a way in for hackers to steal personal data, spy on users in their own homes, or remotely take control of devices in order to misuse them.

The main security issue of many of these devices is that they have pre-set, default unchangeable passwords, and once these passwords have been discovered by cyber-criminals, the IoT devices are wide open to being tampered with and misused.

Also, the fact that IoT devices are so prevalent and are often overlooked in security planning (and are therefore likely left unguarded) means that they are vulnerable to hacks and attacks.

Another big risk is that IoT devices are deployed in many systems that link to (and are supplied by) major utilities e.g. smart meters in homes. This means that a large-scale attack on these IoT systems could affect the economy.

“Shadow IoT” devices i.e. connected to corporate networks without the knowledge of IT teams, also now pose a threat to organisations by allowing attackers a way to get into a corporate network. These devices can include fitness trackers, smartwatches, and medical devices.

Real-Life Examples

A poll by Extreme Networks of 540 IT professionals in the U.S, Europe and the Asia Pacific regions found that 70 per cent of companies who said they employed IoT devices were aware of successful or attempted hacks.

Hacks of IoT devices do not just happen to businesses.  With so many IoT devices being present in the modern home we are all now at risk. Some real-life examples of IoT hacking include:

– Hackers talking to a young girl in her bedroom via a ‘Ring’ home security camera (Mississippi, December 2019).  In the same month, a Florida family were subjected to vocal, racial abuse in their own home and subjected to a loud alarm blast after a hacker took over their ‘Ring’ security system without permission.

– In May 2018, A US woman reported that a private home conversation had been recorded by her Amazon’s voice assistant, and then sent it to a random phone contact who happened to be her husband’s employee.

– Back in 2017, researchers discovered that a sex toy with an in-built camera could also be hacked.

– In October 2016, the ‘Mirai’ attack used thousands of household IoT devices as a botnet to launch an online distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack (on the DNS service ‘Dyn’) with global consequences.

2020 Hacks

Examples of how some bigger IoT systems and devices have been attacked this year include:

– In February, there were reports that a vulnerability in over 2,300 smart building access systems was being exploited by attackers to launch DDoS attacks.

– In May, supercomputing systems in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland were targeted and infected with cryptocurrency mining malware.

– Also in May, a new form of malware called Kaiji was found to have been used to target IoT devices and Linux servers to make them part of a botnet that could be used for several different types of DDoS attacks.

IoT Security Legislation on the Way

In January this year, the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), announced that it is preparing new legislation to enforce new standards that will protect users of IoT devices from known hacking and spying risks.

IoT Household Gadgets

This commitment to legislate leads on from last year’s proposal by then Digital Minister Margot James and follows a seven-month consultation with GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, and with stakeholders including manufacturers, retailers, and academics.

The proposed new legislation will improve digital protection for users of a growing number of smart household devices (devices with an Internet connection) that are broadly grouped together as the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT).  These gadgets include kitchen appliances and gadgets, connected TVs, smart speakers, home security cameras, baby monitors and more.

In business settings, IoT devices can include elevators, doors, or whole heating and fire safety systems in office buildings.

The proposed new legislation will be intended to put pressure on manufacturers to ensure that:

– All internet-enabled devices have a unique password and not a default one.

– There is a public point of contact for the reporting of any vulnerabilities in IoT products.

– The minimum length of time that a device will receive security updates is clearly stated.

Challenges

Even though legislation could make manufacturers try harder to make IoT devices more secure, technical experts and commentators have pointed out that there are many challenges to making internet-enabled/smart devices secure because:

• Adding security to household internet-enabled ‘commodity’ items costs money. This would have to be passed on to the customer in higher prices, but this would mean that the price would not be competitive. Therefore, it may be that security is being sacrificed to keep costs down – sell now and worry about security later.
• Even if there is a security problem in a device, the firmware (the device’s software) is not always easy to update. There are also costs involved in doing so which manufacturers of lower-end devices may not be willing to incur.
• With devices which are typically infrequent and long-lasting purchases e.g. white goods, we tend to keep them until they stop working, and we are unlikely to replace them because they have a security vulnerability that is not fully understood. As such, these devices are likely to remain available to be used by cyber-criminals for a long time.

Looking Ahead

The IoT brings many advantages to businesses in terms of cost savings, the gathering of valuable data, monitoring and management. For consumers, smart devices deliver new levels of value-adding functionality and looking ahead, towns and cities will begin to rely even more on the benefits of IoT devices and systems.

The vast number of IoT devices, many which go unnoticed or fall outside of realistic risk assessments and/or still contain known weaknesses and vulnerabilities mean that there are big concerns about IoT security and privacy going forward.

New legislation could mean that manufacturers in some parts of the world are more motivated to pay greater attention to the security and labelling of IoT devices although there is still some way to go.  That said, smart systems combined with other technologies such as AI and cloud technologies look like providing more opportunities for businesses in the future.

In a bid to raise awareness of responsible behaviour concerning COVID-19 among the younger age groups, the UK government is reported to be paying freelance social media influencers and reality TV stars to promote test and trace.

Test and Trace

Test and trace in the UK is branded as NHS but is actually outsourced to private companies and uses a network of commercial testing labs, drive-through centres, and call centres.  The idea of the service, in the absence of an effective app (the UK’s app trialled in the Isle of Wight and failed after it didn’t work on Apple devices and £11 million had been spent), is to enable the identification and contacting of people who may have been unknowingly in close contact with a COVID-positive person e.g. in a restaurant.

Problem

Even though government schemes (e.g. eat out to help out and other messages) have promoted a return to restaurants and other hospitality businesses, the current narrative focuses on young people as mostly potential asymptomatic spreaders who may not be as concerned about the impact of their behaviour on the wider population.  As such, getting the message to them that they must get tests if they have symptoms and self-isolate if contacted are deemed to be especially important.  Other challenges include the fact that the test and trace service is also reported to be failing to deliver, there appears to be a reluctance among many people to share their contact details, and there is a growing weariness of and dislike pandemic restrictions being imposed, changed and re-imposed.

Freelance Influencers and Reality TV Stars

Younger age groups that have grown up with social media and reality TV are known to be susceptible to messages by social media influencers and reality TV stars.  This is believed to be because:

– Social media influencers are perceived as being more like their audience, sharing more of their experiences and therefore more ‘authentic’ (perhaps unlike more guarded celebrity behaviour), often encouraging engagement with social issues (adding to their credibility) and being able to forge a stronger more engaging direct relationship with followers i.e. they are trusted, and they are young.

– Reality TV stars are perceived to be ‘ordinary’ (just like their audience), they are open, spontaneous and outspoken (like their young audience) and they appear familiar and almost friend-like to their young admirers i.e. there is a perceived relationship with the star.

– Social media influencers have massive reach.  Individual influencers can have millions of followers.

Proven

Social media influencers and reality TV stars have a proven record of boosting sales of products in, for example, the fashion and beauty industries through their endorsements.

Who and How Much?

The UK government is reported to have enlisted the services of Love Island stars Shaughna Phillips, Josh Denzel and Chris Hughes.  It is likely that a social media influencer with a large following could be paid thousands of pounds for a single post.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Businesses in the beauty and fashion industries know how important reviews and endorsements for influencers and reality stars can be in boosting brand-power and sales.  Many different businesses also know how difficult it can be to effectively reach younger audiences in a cost-effective way.  It makes sense, therefore, that influencers who can promote test and trace among the young in a positive way and in a way that stresses its ease, convenience and social responsibility is likely to be a good tactic. Businesses in the hospitality sector, for example, have been particularly affected by pandemic restrictions and they are likely to support any intelligent moves to make going out much safer.

Aside from its promotion, however, questions are still being asked about how far people are having to travel to even get a test, how well the test and trace service is operating, where bottlenecks are, and how accurate capacity and testing figures are.

An FT investigation appears to have uncovered an estimated 20,000 Amazon reviews where the reviewers were suspected of being paid to give a five-star rating.

Reviews

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK estimates that £23 billion a year of UK consumer spending is potentially influenced by online reviews.  This makes them especially important to the many businesses selling through platforms like Amazon.

The CMA also acknowledges that there are practices that can breach the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) and UK Advertising Codes and that these practices may prevent consumers from choosing the product or service that best suits their needs.  These can include businesses writing or commissioning fake positive reviews about themselves, businesses or individuals writing or commissioning fake negative reviews, review sites ‘cherry-picking’ positive reviews, or suppressing negative reviews and review sites’ moderation processes possibly causing some genuine negative reviews not to be published.

One recently reported trend appears to be the use of multiple one-star feedback reviews for products on Amazon, perhaps funded by competitors, as a form of manipulation.

Deletions

The FT investigation, which has led to the deletion by Amazon of the 20,000 allegedly fraudulent reviews reportedly showed the UK’s top Amazon reviewer appeared to have left an average of one five-star rating on the platform every four hours in August.

How Can It Happen?

The process that leads to fraudulent/fake five-star reviews may begin with companies meeting reviewers on social networks (e.g. in Facebook groups) or messaging apps, reviewers receiving free product samples, a good review being left on the platform and the reviewer then being given a refund on the product that was free to them in the first place.

Not New

Fake and fraudulent reviews are not new. Back in July, The Markup claimed to have found suspicious-looking reviews on Amazon and back in December 2019 a Daily Mail report claimed that Marketing firms were selling positive reviews on Amazon. At the time, Amazon said that it had already taken legal action against some firms for this.

Amazon’s Efforts

In the UK, fake reviews fall under UK under consumer protection law and last year alone, Amazon is reported to have spent 400 million (US dollars) to protect customers from reviews abuse, fraud, and other forms of misconduct.  It has also bee reported that Amazon monitors around 10 million review submissions each week before they go public in an attempt to protect buyers and the credibility of its own review system.

How To Spot Fake Reviews

Ways to spot fake review include using services like free site ‘Fakespot’ where users can copy and paste a link to a product page, then click Analyse to show any evidence of fake reviews.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Amazon is a vital sales platform for many businesses and, with the power that good reviews have in increasing sales and bad or low star reviews have in deterring sales, it is clear to see how some businesses may be tempted to resort to paid-for manipulation as a competitive tactic. Consumers, Amazon itself, and businesses that are affected by unfair reviews all lose out where fake/fraudulent/manipulated reviews can slip through the vetting process. Many people feel, therefore, that Amazon and other platforms (e.g. social media) need to work together and increase the effort, investment, technology, and creative thinking that could deliver a much improved or an innovative and new review system.

Amazon has announced its new ‘Printing With Alexa’ service that allows owners of Echo devices to operate their printer using voice commands.

Print What?

Printing With Alexa allows the simple “Alexa, print….” followed by what the user requires to produce a printed document.  Amazon says that the kinds of things that can be printed this way include “shopping and to-do lists, games like mazes and Sudoku, graph paper, lined paper, and test pages.”

The list of different documents, many of which are related to family activities, appears to reflect the working and learning from home that has become the new norm for many people over the last 6 months, and possibly again in the future with second spikes or more lockdowns.

Connecting

Amazon says that the service will work with compatible printers that are connected to the same wireless network as your Alexa device (provided it is a compatible Echo device too). The service is activated when the user says “Alexa, discover my printer”, or navigates to the “Devices” screen in the Alexa App, selects “+”, selects “Add Device”, and chooses “Printer” as the device type. Amazon says that the service works with most IPP-enabled network-connected printers manufactured by HP, Brother, Canon, and Epson.

Ink or Toner Re-Orders

The service also enables automatic ordering ink or toner from Amazon at a 10 per cent discount, thereby acting as a kind of hands-free replenishment process and providing extra revenue for Amazon.

Brand Voice

Back in February, before the worldwide pandemic lockdowns and working-from-home hit, Amazon was more focused on features for the business market with Alexa as it offered a new ‘Brand Voice’ capability through AWS (Brand Polly) to companies which enabled them to create their own custom voice for Alexa to replace the default voice with one that reflected their “persona”, such as the voice of Colonel Sanders for KFC.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The ‘Printing With Alexa’ service is another step in Amazon’s plan to tie Alexa (and Echo devices) more closely in with all aspects of the user’s life e.g. making phone calls, setting their appointments, alarms and reminders, and linking in with many other devices on their home network plus IoT devices.  This strategy may put Amazon’s digital assistant at the heart of the operation of modern home and will, as in this case with the printer cartridge re-ordering, tie in with Amazon’s retailing platforms, thereby providing increased revenue for Amazon and a monetising of Alexa.  This may even spread to the ordering of groceries.  For example, in July, Amazon announced that it was taking on the supermarkets and Ocado in the UK with free grocery deliveries from its Amazon Fresh service.

Even though the pandemic has dampened business-targeted announcements, Amazon is still planning to keep monetising Alexa in the business market too where there is huge potential for modifications and different targeted and customised versions of Alexa and digital assistants.  For example, in April last year, Amazon launched its Alexa for Business Blueprints, which is a platform that enables businesses to make their own Alexa-powered applications for their organisation and incorporate their own customised, private ‘skills’.

A statement to investors from Anne Boden, CEO of Starling, gives an example of how and why starter banks and Fintech have seen a rise in popularity over the period of the pandemic.

Starling

Starling is a London-based, digital, mobile-only challenger bank that was designed and formed in 2014 by Anne Boden, a banker with an IT background.  The idea behind Starling is what Starling describes as “a fairer, smarter and more human alternative to the banks of the past”.  This involves using IT to provide maximum convenience to its customers.  Starling says it now has more than 1.5 million customer accounts with over £3 billion in deposits and that it offers personal, business, joint and euro accounts as well as payment services proposition for businesses.

A Year of Growth

In the recent statement, Anne Boden highlights a year of growth for the bank across the board, a new account being opened every 35 seconds and the fact that Starling is the fastest-growing SME bank in Europe with more than a 3 per cent share of the UK’s SME banking market.

The rapid 9-month growth is illustrated by its £1 billion on deposit in November 2019 to £3 billion on deposit in July.

Pandemic

In the statement, Boden highlights the following three ways in which Starling was able to boost its growth during the pandemic:

1. Being able to offer small business owners emergency help in the form of more than £1 billion of lending under the government-backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme to support them.

2. The ‘Connected Card’ which enabled those individuals who were sheltering to have a secure way of paying while relying on friends and neighbours to get their shopping for them.

3. Starling having its own in-house engineering (technology) teams and its own core banking software running in the public cloud infrastructure rather than having to rely upon outsourced expertise (like other banks do), legacy systems or many different vendor packages and their own data-centres.

Fintech

Fintech has proved to be a growing market and many big-tech companies have moved into this market with the help of partnerships.  For example, Google partnering with Citigroup to offer ‘smart checking’ accounts (bank current accounts) as part of its ‘Cache’ project, Apple introducing its own credit card, the ‘Apple Card’ in the US in partnership with Goldman Sachs and with processing by Mastercard, and Amazon offering credit card and business loans, with a view to boosting its own e-commerce business.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The pandemic restrictions on physical movement instantly changed the rules for businesses, particularly for the high street/bricks and mortar businesses and the hospitality industry. In finance and banking, businesses struggled to find finance to stay afloat and challenger banks like Starling provided an opportunity and a lifeline through their loan schemes.  Also, with remote working necessary and with a greater reliance than ever on mobile devices, Starling’s in-house expertise, cloud-based systems, and focus on convenient technology gave it the agility and accessibility that it needed to apparently buck the challenges that many of the big, incumbent banks faced. Moving forwards in a society that has been given another big push towards ‘cashless’, fintech and challenger banks appear likely to see more growth.