Internet of Things Security: A Review of Risks and Threats to Healthcare Sector

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining momentum as billions of devices and wirelessly connected systems will soon be adopting various IoT technologies and exchanging potentially sensitive information. IoT devices can be deployed and linked to cloud services using local Wi-Fi and cellular Internet connections via IPv6. However, as a distributed environment for an open market and a rich source of 'big data' with unlimited systems interactions, the IoT would allow attackers to identify many vulnerable targets and to launch their attacks. Such vulnerabilities and attacks could have an impact on any number of services and systems within and across different critical infrastructures. The major problem is that the existing IoT mechanisms and protocols have not been designed to deal with such challenges. Therefore, the security of the IoT has come into question which means that, in order to be secure, the IoT will require robust and secure objects, protocols and systems. Recent advances in the fields of IoT such as embedded systems security, industrial malware analysis, detection and prevention are a key factor in the growth of IoT services and operations. This paper is concerned with the growing dependence of modern society on wireless technologies and on the role of IoT in the healthcare sector in particular. IoT systems and their users are vulnerable to a range of security threats and malicious activities. Therefore, rigorous research is required to develop security approaches and technologies that are capable of responding to this new evolving environment. This paper presents different risks and security threats to the IoT, some security measures and solution models as well as a vulnerability assessment approach for the IoT in the healthcare sector.