Fortifying IoT Data Exchange: Ellenex's APIs Defense Mechanism

May 14, 20243 min read

37 million consumer private information was compromised through exploiting vulnerable API at T-Mobile!

fortify your API Cyber Security in this common era of hacking and privacy breaching across IoT industry

The Role of Application Programming Interface (API) in IoT

In the realm of IoT (Internet of Things), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) play a pivotal role in facilitating communication and interaction between devices, services, and applications.

IoT ecosystems often comprise an assortment of devices and services from different manufacturers, each with its own protocols and specifications. APIs provide a standardised interface that abstracts away the complexities of underlying systems, allowing developers to create applications that can communicate with diverse IoT devices without needing to understand the intricacies of each device's protocols.

APIs essentially serve as the intermediary that allows disparate IoT components to seamlessly exchange data and functionality.
This integration and interoperability is crucial for the efficiency and effectiveness of IoT systems, enabling diverse devices to work cohesively in delivering a range of services and experiences.

Wake-Up Call in API Cybersecurity

Amidst the benefits that APIs bring to IoT, it's imperative to recognise the importance of fortifying their privacy and security. With an estimated IoT device connection reaching nearly 30 billion by 2030, the privacy threats is indifferent and perhaps even more severe compare to end user devices. With 10.54 million attacks on IoT devices in 2022 and 84% of organisations experiencing IoT-related security breaches, causing unauthorised access to IoT systems, manipulate devices and intercept sensitive information that imposes significant risks to individuals and organisations.

Just in last year, the infamous T-Mobile breach exemplifies the risks associated with API vulnerabilities, where 37 million customers' personal information was compromised through an API exploit. This incident is part of a broader trend of increasing API vulnerabilities, including issues in widely-used OAuth, SSO and JWT protocols, even affecting systems from large companies like Cisco and Ivanti.

Insufficient or weak utilisations of modern security protocols and libraries may result in severe cybersecurity issues, especially for API endpoints of IoT networks

Uplift Your API Security Measures

To mitigate these risks, robust security measures must be implemented throughout the API lifecycle:

Authentication: Use digital certificates for authentication, as they are integral to an IoT security strategy. Digital certificates can be used for one-way, two-way, or three-way authentication, depending on the organisation's needs and the latency and data requirements of the IoT devices
Authorisation: Implement access controls in API interfaces to selectively restrict access to authorised applications or users. This helps in ensuring that only authorised entities can access the data or perform actions on the IoT devices
Encryption: Use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocols for data encryption. Encryption is crucial for securing data communications from IoT devices, providing confidentiality, authentication of origin, data integrity, and awareness of the sender.
Data Transmission protocol: Choose secure protocols that are suitable for IoT application requirements, which Low Power Wide Area Networking (LPWAN) and Wireless Personal Area Networking (WPAN) are decent options based on your communication needs.

With an continuous assessment of the latest API security risks (2023) on Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP), developers and cybersecurity specialists may focus on the most prevalent threats:

Broken Object Level Authorisation
Broken Authentication
Broken Object Property Level Authorisation
Unrestricted Resource Consumption
...

Behind the Scene: Ellenex’s Comprehensive API Security Strategy

Ellenex offers the top-tier APIs Integrations with advanced security measures for all of our end-to-end solutions in Inventory management systems, Contamination and Pollution Prevention (air, water, soil), Performance Monitoring and Predictive maintenance, Safety and Disaster Prevention, Supply Chain Management, Cloud Control Loop, Workflow Management, Overload monitoring

As a IoT end-to-end solution provider who emphasis on modularity and interoperability, enabling and securing our APIs integration are listed as our top priority. Following a rigorous and industrial-strength security strategy, we are proud to safeguarding our client's privacy with:

Robust Access Control and Authentication: Ensuring only authorised users access specific data with standardised RBAC controls.
Data Encryption During Transmission: TLS encryption for data in transit, ensuring that our LPWAN-based communication (such as LoRaWAN and NB-IoT) between clients and our API endpoints is protected against eavesdropping and tampering.
Monitoring and Logging: Early detection of suspicious activities to prevent breaches.
Rate Limiting and Throttling: Limiting request volumes to prevent brute force attacks.
Regular Security Updates: Keeping APIs resilient against new threats by following the security best practices that our cloud service provider outlined.
Web Application Firewall: protect our API against common web exploits and attacks by filtering malicious traffic based on predefined rules.
Webhooks Integration: Offering superior cybersecurity through our Webhooks, eliminate the risk of distributing comprisable API tokens while ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of IoT communication.