Secure firmware updates in the Internet of Things: A survey

Abstract

The Internet of things is an infrastructure of connected things (sensors, refrigerators, smart phones, etc.) which is changing the way we live, play, work, communicate and conduct business. Even though these things have such great impact in our lives, they are susceptible to security issues and vulnerabilities, which often result in negative consequences such as loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability. Hence, some users are still skeptical about the use of IoT. This paper explores the security problems that arise due to IoT device firmware updatability. New vulnerabilities are uncovered all of the time. If a device is non-upgradeable, then the vulnerability will exist for the rest of the device’s lifetime. As a countermeasure, it is imperative to design security measures to enable automatic update of IoT devices. This paper focuses on current research work based on IoT firmware updates with the aim of highlighting issues related with security of firmware updates. It specifically focuses on the security challenges that face lowend IoT devices and Low-power Wide Area Networks.