Security Enabling for IoT and Wireless Sensor Network Based Data Communication

Security has been a major issue since even before the advent of new technologies. Communicated messages, especially those of a particularly sensitive nature, were always cyphered so that if intercepted they could not be easily deciphered. With the widespread use of the internet in the early 1990s, a lot of data and communicated messages were deemed of a sensitive nature, such as bank account numbers, personal identification, credit card credentials, and many more. The community of those wanting to do harm by accessing unauthorized information grew and it became essential for security to be an integral part of the development of technology. The newly deployed technologies of the Internet of things (IoT) and wireless sensor networks were deemed an easy target initially because of the lack of security precautions and prevention. However, the widespread use of these technologies made it essential that their security weaknesses be addressed and that more work be done to protect consumers’ data and information as well as to block access to these technologies by unauthorized individuals looking to cause harm. In this chapter, we highlight the security risks associated with IoT and wireless sensor networks. We propose a model for the future security of IoT and detail the benefits of the proposed solutions. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion and proposed future work.