Forewarned is forearmed

Abstract

Purpose Internet of Things (IoT) interconnects many heterogeneous devices to each other, collecting and processing large volumes of data for decision making without human intervention. However, the information security concern it brings has attracted quite a lot of attention, and, at this stage, the smart step would be to analyze the security issues of IoT platform and get to the state of readiness before embarking upon this attractive technology. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach IoT risk assessment through the application of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a favorite multi-criteria decision making technique, is proposed. The IoT risks are prioritized and ranked at different layers, before which a well-defined IoT risk taxonomy is defined comprising of 25 risks across six layers of the IoT model for developing control and mitigation plans for information security of IoT. Findings People and processes layer, network layer and applications layer are the top three critical layers with risks like the lack of awareness, malware injection, malicious code injection, denial of service and inefficient policies for IoT practice get the highest priority and rank. Pareto analysis of the overall risk factors revealed that the top ten factors contribute to 80 percent of the risks perceived by information security experts. Research limitations/implications The study focuses only on certain predefined constructs or layers of the IoT model traced from legacy studies. It is essential to re-look these constructs on a timely basis to prolong the results’ validity. The study’s empirical scope is confined only to the risk perception of select IoT experts and does not encompass a broader segment of the IoT ecosystem. Therefore, the risks assessment may not be sweeping to a bigger audience. Practical implications The study implications are two-fold: one it consolidates the earlier siloed works to intensify the need for risk assessment in the IoT domain, and second the study brings yet another contextual avenue of extending the application AHP and Pareto principle combination. The paper also draws specific critical organizational interventions about IoT risks. A comprehensive approach to prioritizing and ranking IoT risks are present in this research paper. Originality/value The contribution of this study to the benchmarking of IoT risk assessment is two-fold. One, a comprehensive risk assessment taxonomy is proposed, and two, the risks are prioritized and ranked to give a convincing reference for the organizations while making information security plans for IoT technology.

Respite for SMEs: A Systematic Review of Socio-Technical Cybersecurity Metrics

“…Juliadotter and Choo [119] 2015 Risk Theoretical Both Otero [120] 2015 Risk Theoretical Defender Solic et al [121] 2015 Risk Theoretical Defender Sugiura et al [122] 2015 Risk Theoretical Defender Wei et al [123] 2015 Risk Theoretical Defender You et al [75] 2015 Security Theoretical Defender Brožová et al [51] 2016 Risk Theoretical Defender Brynielsson et al [124] 2016 Awareness Theoretical Defender Granåsen and Andersson [125] 2016 Resilience Theoretical Defender Orojloo and Azgomi [126] 2016 Risk Theoretical Attacker Aiba and Hiromatsu [127] 2017 Risk Theoretical Defender Damenu and Beaumont [103] 2017 Risk Implementation Defender Ramos et al [41] 2017 Review -Defender Rass et al [52] 2017 Risk Theoretical Defender Alohali et al [128] 2018 Risk Theoretical Defender Li et al [82] 2018 Risk Theoretical Defender Morrison et al [43] 2018 Review -Both Pramod and Bharathi [129] 2018 Risk Theoretical Defender Proença and Borbinha [89] 2018 Maturity Implementation Defender Rueda and Avila [130] 2018 Risk Theoretical Defender Shokouhyar et al [104] 2018 Risk Theoretical Defender Stergiopoulos et al [131] 2018 Risk Theoretical Defender You et al [132] 2018 Maturity Theoretical Defender Akinsanya et al [133] 2019 Maturity Theoretical Defender Bharathi [134] 2019 Risk Theoretical Defender Fertig et al [135] 2019 Awareness Theoretical Defender Husák et al [31] 2019 Review -Defender Salih et al [136] 2019 Risk Theoretical Defender Cadena et al [34] 2020 Review -Defender Wirtz and Heisel [137] 2020 Risk Theoretical Defender Ganin et al [138] 2020 Risk Theoretical Defender Luh et al [90] 2020 Risk Theoretical Both Table A3. The in...…”

Prioritising enabling factors of Internet of things (IoT) adoption in digital supply chain

“…Irrespective of this relatively low ranking, it is not in doubt that human capital, as well as the organisational climate and culture, play a crucial role in the success of technological solutions according to Zdravkovi c et al (2018). What is also not in doubt, based on the findings from the interviews, is that many organisations are reluctant to invest in IoT until technological issues such as standardisation, IoT information security risks (Bharathi, 2019), wide area networks, integration and compatibility are resolved. For example, it has been highlighted that technology integration is one of the major challenges hindering IoT implementation (Haddud et al, 2017;Ahamed et al, 2021).…”

“…Shin and Park (2017) identified the importance of the cultural fit of IoT to the users while Tu (2018) also found that key organisational issues such as cost of implementation could act as barriers to IoT adoption. Among a range of technical issues that the industry is facing, key issues include cyber-attacks due to interoperability with multidevices (Rejikumar et al, 2019) and information security risks (Bharathi, 2019). According to Soltani (2022), understanding of relationship management within the context of IoT remains limited and for these reasons, it is important that organisations reach a state of readiness before commencing with IoT (Bharathi, 2019).…”

“…, 2019) and information security risks (Bharathi, 2019). According to Soltani (2022), understanding of relationship management within the context of IoT remains limited and for these reasons, it is important that organisations reach a state of readiness before commencing with IoT (Bharathi, 2019).…”

Impact of technology, health and consumer-related factors on continued usage intention of wearable fitness tracking (WFT) devices

“…The Internet of Things (IoT) technology has simplified our daily routine by interconnecting smart devices, applications, and services that significantly influence our decision-making processes and lifestyles (Bharathi, 2019). In addition, it influences economic activity across different industries and affects their strategic decisions, investment, and productivity (Goyena and Fallis, 2019).…”