Deemed “The Embedded Systems Experts”, the Barr Group releases preliminary results from its 2017 Embedded Systems Safety & Security Survey, which highlights statistics regarding design trends for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This year’s survey finds many IoT-application development teams are not following industry best practices for safe and secure embedded systems. This could put all mobile applications and the entire IoT infrastructure at risk, so the group says.
The survey formulates the following statistics:
- 9% percent of IoT designers don’t keep their source code in a version control system
- 56% percent don’t perform regular source code reviews for bugs and security holes
- 60% percent don’t use a static analysis tool to check the source code
- 25% percent don’t have a bug database or other system to track known issues
- 37% don’t utilize a written coding standard, and others don’t enforce one consistently
These findings are very much in line with findings of numerous studies conducted throughout 2016 and early this year. One of the biggest reason for this is the pressure for designers to get their products to market fast. Often, similar to pharmaceutical companies, safety and security is an afterthought, i.e., “let’s release the product and keep our fingers crossed.”
An eBook will soon be available on the Sensors Magazine website that is a mini encyclopedia of cybersecurity resources and features a roundtable discussion with some of the major players in the embedded and IoT security space. The book details numerous studies with links to them and pinpoints the greatest threats looming on the horizon. The book should be available within the next week, so come back and check the homepage. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, it is free of charge. ~MD