(Photo: GSMA Homepage)

Supported by Mobile Industry, Presents Joint Approach to IoT Service Security

GSMA has announced new guidelines today to promote the safe development and dissemination of services in the growing Internet of Things market. Titled "The GSMA IoT Security Guidelines," these guidelines were developed with input from the mobile industry and provide practical advice to service providers and the broader IoT ecosystem for jointly addressing privacy protection issues and cybersecurity threats associated with IoT services.

This initiative received cooperation and support from mobile operators including AT&T, China Telecom, Etisalat, KDDI, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Telefónica, Telenor, Verizon, and vendor and infrastructure partners including 7Layers, Ericsson, Gemalto, Morpho, Telit, and u-blox.

Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of GSMA, said, "As billions of devices connect through the Internet of Things to deliver innovative and interconnected new services, potential vulnerabilities are bound to increase accordingly." He added, "This challenge can be overcome if more attention is paid to end-to-end security of IoT services during service design and appropriate mitigation technologies are deployed. A proven strong security approach creates services where trust grows along with market growth."

Created for IoT Ecosystem Participants, Methods to Address Potential Threats, Implementation Approaches, and More

These security guidelines were created for all participants in the IoT ecosystem, including IoT service providers, IoT device manufacturers, and developers, and through outlining technologies and methods to address potential threats as well as implementation approaches, they help service providers build secure services. Additionally, they establish risk assessment criteria for all components of IoT services, enabling the secure collection, storage, and exchange of data as well as the development of mitigation measures against cybersecurity attacks. These guidelines have undergone thorough consultation with scholars, analysts, and other industry experts recently to create security guidance that is as comprehensive as possible.

Don A. Bailey, founder and CEO of Lab Mouse Security, stated, "There is abundant evidence that cyberattacks are already occurring in the rapidly growing IoT space. Failure to appropriately respond to these attacks will hinder the growth and stability of IoT," and "The industry must adopt standard approaches to address security risks and mitigation so that the entire IoT ecosystem ensures protection against attacks, privacy breaches, and fraud that affect our lives."

These security guidelines were developed through the GSMA Connected Living program. This program is designed to enable operators to more actively deploy new connected devices and services in the M2M market. Additionally, it focuses on promoting industry cooperation and activating appropriate regulation and network optimization to support M2M growth in the near term and facilitate IoT growth in the long term.

Detailed information about these guidelines can be found at www.gsma.com/connectedliving/iot-security-guidelines.