hp-security-research-cyber-risk-report-pdf-2-w-1408

HP Security Research | Cyber Risk Report 2015There’s an ongoing effort to engage developer communities to participate in creatinghardware, software, and firmware solutions covering network-connected, embedded, anddeeply embedded devices. This of course is not limited only to hardware and firmware. Thesoftware includes developing services, cloud solutions, and Big Data analytical and aggregatingplatforms. The industry, taught by the experiences of companies like Apple and Google,understands that a competitive advantage lies with ease of development and an abundanceof applications. This will drive the development of frameworks and standards even further.On the hardware end of things the same methodology persists. Success lies in targeting abroad community of makers, including those who are not entirely skilled in electronic design orengineering. This implies modular hardware design with most of the functionality embeddedinto ICs. It gives rise to a prevalence of system on integrated chip solutions (SoIC), whichsimplifies hardware design and connectivity but unfortunately, due to proprietary firmwaresolutions and a lack of unified interface protocols, increases solution fragmentationeven further.Major chip manufacturers, realizing the need for SoIC that target the lower and middle end ofIoT devices, are bringing comprehensive firmware and integrated development environmentsolutions to market. One popular approach is to separate the logic of the TCP/IP stack andWi-Fi radios from a connected device. There are many manufacturers racing to compete inthe fast growing IoT chipset and Wi-Fi modules field. Manufacturers to note include Microchip,STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, Broadcom, QualcommAtheros, Nordic Semiconductor, Atmel, and others.The current lineup of developing frameworks shows that possible solutions are likely tocongregate around integrated and self-contained Wi-Fi modules connected to a host processor.Such modules will either offload networking services from a host controller, or will be capableof carrying application software on the network processor itself. These Wi-Fi modules are alsolikely to run a flavor of the Linux OS and its TCP/IP stack or another third-party OS, and to relyon lwIP (lightweight IP) or their own TCP/IP stack (often royalty-free with the use of proprietarychipsets such as Microchip and TI). The Wi-Fi module network processors, as well as host deviceprocessors, will gravitate toward a balance of computational power and the ability to sustainlower power consumption. This is especially important for “always-on” devices with lowerconnectivity bandwidth such as ambient light sensors, temperature and humidity sensors, andso on.With the sector rapidly expanding and so many alternative solutions rushed to the market bydifferent manufacturers, we should expect to experience further market fragmentation anda bigger variety of frameworks and available solutions. The initiative is there to introduce acommon open-source framework, including connectivity layers as well as development toolchains and software (for example, MBed, OpenIoT, or IoTSyS). This shows that popular IoTdevices are most likely to run an open source OS such as AllJoyn, which was initially developedby Qualcomm but is currently sponsored by the AllSeen Alliance. This is the most prominent OSand thus likely to be accepted as an industry standard because it is cross-platform and has APIsfor Android, iOS, OS X, Linux, and Windows. It also includes a framework and a set of servicesthat will allow manufacturers to create compatible devices. Other operating systems worthmentioning are Contiki, RaspbianPi (based on a Debian distribution of Linux), RIOT, and Spark.48