{"id":17450,"date":"2015-12-11T17:56:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T17:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2015\/12\/11\/how-iot-poses-a-security-risk-to-our-critical-infrastructure\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:45:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:45:33","slug":"how-iot-poses-a-security-risk-to-our-critical-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/opinions\/2015\/12\/11\/how-iot-poses-a-security-risk-to-our-critical-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"How IoT poses a security risk to our critical infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Robert Metzger is a shareholder at law firm Rogers Joseph O&#8217;Donnell PC, where he&#8217;s a\u00a0member of the Government Contracts Practice Group and head of the Washington, D.C. office.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Widely promoted, the Internet of Things is coming to the federal landscape.\u00a0 Advocates promise a veritable &#8220;new age&#8221; of efficiency. Skeptics\u00a0see it as one more avenue\u00a0for hacking into federal systems. But actually, the risks don&#8217;t end there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s true that proliferation of connected devices supposedly will enable government to better accomplish existing tasks and achieve new, adaptive and responsive functionality. \u00a0Of course, the IoT also connotes an enormous prospective market for providers at every level of the IoT &#8220;stack&#8221; \u2013 applications, devices and platforms, sensors, transport (connectivity), analytics and infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But a number of federal agencies already are concerned about cyber vulnerability and the IoT.\u00a0 There are important privacy interests to protect as information is created, obtained, used or transmitted in the operation of the IoT.\u00a0 And some agencies are concerned that the IOT brings new risks to the reliability of consumer devices, such has medical equipment, or automobiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This blog, however, looks at IOT from the perspective of national defense and critical infrastructure.\u00a0 The IoT presents new &#8220;cyber\/physical&#8221; risks that merit the attention of policy makers, regulators and private industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, let&#8217;s calibrate relevant definitions.\u00a0IDC, a consulting organization, defines the &#8220;IOT as a network of network of uniquely identifiable endpoints (or &#8220;things&#8221;) that communicate without human interaction using IP connectivity.\u00a0 NIST, in its draft framework for cyber-physical systems, released this September, defines cyber-physical systems as smart systems that include engineered interactive, interconnected and integrated networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The crucial overlap of these definitions is this:\u00a0 cyberattacks upon the IoT can produce adverse consequence upon physical systems that are IOT endpoints.\u00a0 Those consequences can include loss of functionality at the device, unit, system or platform, to the extent that the &#8220;mode&#8221; of failure moves upstream from the endpoint.\u00a0 Applying FIPS 199 nomenclature, cyberattacks upon IoT put at risk <em>each<\/em> of confidentiality, integrity <em>and<\/em> availability.\u00a0 Potential attack surfaces multiply as a function of the connectivity upon which the entire IoT &#8220;stack&#8221; depends.\u00a0 Conceivably, adversaries can attack complex systems by subversion or manipulation of firmware, embedded code or addressable software at the device level.\u00a0 An adversary, for illustration, could find a latent vulnerability in the operating code for a legacy electronic device and exploit that vulnerability by insertion of malicious code.\u00a0 In turn, and perhaps at the time of the adversary&#8217;s choosing, the tainted code could be used to exfiltrate information from host infrastructure, or to damage, disrupt or even deny service of connected devices and sponsoring systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we accept cyber\/physical risk in the IoT, let&#8217;s characterize the threat as this:\u00a0 an adversary may exploit cyber-active devices or the means by which these are connected to or managed by infrastructure to deny, disrupt or impair the functionality of defense systems and critical national infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This prompts a question, for federal policy-makers to consider: How well do current federal government initiatives assure that that this threat is being addressed by the industrial base for defense and critical infrastructure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The answer is \u2013 not well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Department of Defense has accomplished the most.\u00a0 But, as affects its contractors, DoD measures focus on counterfeit electronic parts, which could cause system failure, and the &#8220;cyber&#8221; threat to sensitive but unclassified federal information used, hosted or transmitted on contractor information systems.\u00a0 Neither DoD (nor any other federal agency) have used their acquisition authority to improve assessment of cyber\/physical risks and today there are no generally applied or available contractual measures that impose proactive obligations on the industrial base to act on those risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advocates promise a veritable \u201cnew age\u201d of efficiency from the Internet of Things. Skeptics see it as one more avenue for hacking into federal systems. But the risks don&#8217;t end there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":37618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":26,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2744],"class_list":["post-17450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-opinions"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"SF3EDWLFFJDTXO3EUTINQSEXI4","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinions\/2015\/12\/11\/how-iot-poses-a-security-risk-to-our-critical-infrastructure\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How IoT poses a security risk to our critical infrastructure - Federal Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Advocates promise a veritable \u201cnew age\u201d of efficiency from the Internet of Things. 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