Low-Energy Security: Limits and Opportunities in the Internet of Things
There is a push to extend the boundary of the Internet to include a wide array of nontraditional computing devices, ranging from programmable thermostats to wearable systems to devices that monitor and track people/objects. Many of these new “networkable” devices, which constitute the “Internet of Things,” are low-energy and lightweight computing devices. For these low-end devices, most of the available energy and computation must be devoted to executing core application functionality, thereby making the task of affordably supporting security and privacy quite challenging. This perspective examines the challenge of securing devices with significantly limited functional and energy resources.