Can testing outfit Underwriters Laboratories secure the Internet of Things?
The testing outfit聽Underwriters Laboratories that got its start more than a century ago evaluating products for fire hazards is turning its skeptical eye on the Internet of Things.
While the organization 鈥� whose UL logo has become ubiquitous on products such as fire alarms and microwaves 鈥� already tests many consumer tech gadgets, on Tuesday it's meant to better safeguard the聽burgeoning market for Internet-connected devices.
UL's arrival into the IoT marketplace is further confirmation of the coming wave of connected devices designed for homes as well as for industry. The research firm Gartner estimates that some 6.4 billion IoT devices will be in use this year and some 20.8 billion will be online by 2020.聽
Many cybersecurity experts are already warning that devicemakers aren't doing enough to build in security to IoT devices and have left opening for malicious hackers to access utilities or municipal networks .
Using the new standards, some of the 600 experts UL has dedicated to cybersecurity efforts will examine source code in connected devices, hunting for聽vulnerabilities and looking at聽components that could be particularly susceptible to errors.聽Devices that meet the IoT standards will be certified as "UL 2900 compliant."聽The first round of testing will focus on聽industrial and medical products.聽UL has published of the standards 鈥� but the full set $800 online.
The UL announcement聽comes after the February release of the White House's 鈥� aimed at helping government agencies and businesses defend networks against computer attacks. In fact,聽several US government agencies helped develop UL鈥檚 IoT standards.
And as more connected equipment and sensors enter the workplace and homes, other efforts are underway to help secure these devices.聽
Last summer, noted security researcher Peiter Zatko, aka Mudge, he was leaving Google to launch a government-backed "CyberUL" project. But since then,聽Mr. Zatko has not offered specifics.聽Karl Kasper, another well-known security researcher, also envisioned a similar idea in a .
But some security experts worry that applying UL standards to cybersecurity will only help part of the problem when it comes to fixing software vulnerabilities.
"There鈥檚 so much in the software it鈥檚 impossible to certify every little component of it," said聽Robert Graham, president of the cybersecurity firm Errata Security.聽"It鈥檚 like you鈥檙e trying to certify an aircraft carrier by only looking at the outside shell of the boat."
This story has been updated to include additional information about the cost of UL standards.聽
