Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) releases ‘Code of Practice for securing consumer Internet of Things (IoT)’

What is the news?

The Telecommunication Engineering Centre(TEC) under the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications has released a report titled “Code of Practice for Securing Consumer Internet of Things(IoT)”.

This report is intended for use by IoT device manufacturers, Service providers/ system integrators and application developers.

What is the need of Code of Practice for Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices?

According to NITI Aayog “IoT is a seamless and connected network of embedded objects/ devices, with identifiers, in which Machine to machine (M2M) communication without any human intervention is possible using standard and interoperable communication protocols”.

Phones, Tablets and PCs are not included as part of IoT. 

As per the projections, there may be 26 billion IoT devices in service globally by 2026. Out of this approximately 20% will be on cellular technologies.

Moreover, as per the National Digital Communication Policy (NDCP) 2018 released by Department of Telecommunications (DoT), an ecosystem is to be created for 5 billion connected devices by 2022 in India.

In view of the anticipated growth of IoT devices, it is important to ensure that the IoT endpoints comply with the safety and security standards and guidelines in order to protect the users and the networks that connect these IoT devices. That’s why these guidelines have been issued.

What are the key guidelines issued under Code of Practice for Securing Consumer Internet of Things(IoT)?

1) No universal default passwords, 2) Implement a means to manage reports of vulnerabilities, 3) Keep software updated, 4) Securely store sensitive security parameters, 5) Communicate securely, 6) Ensure Software Integrity, 7) Ensure that Personal Data is secure, 8) Make system resilient to outages, 9) Make it easy for users to delete data, and 10) Make installations and maintenance of devices easy.

Source: This post is based on the article ‘Telecommunication Engineering Centre(TEC) releases ‘Code of Practice for securing consumer Internet of Things (IoT)’ ’ published in PIB on 6^th Jan 2022.