How Panasonic is using internet honeypots to improve IoT device security

Electronics and home-appliance manufacturer Panasonic has detailed how it has strengthened the security of its Internet of Things devices by connecting them to internet honeypots and allowing hackers to try and take them over.

The global corporation uses two specially built honeypot sites that have the effect of exposing devices to the internet, to lure cyber criminals into attacking the devices. The products being tested like this range from IP cameras to connected home appliances like fridges and other kitchen products.

It’s all part of Panasonic’s efforts to understand the IoT threat landscape and how to counter threats targeting the products they manufacturer and how to protect consumers and businesses from IoT-based cyberattacks.

The process was detailed by Hikohiro Y Lin, general manager and head of the product security incident response team, and Yuki Osawa, senior engineer at Panasonic Corporation, presenting a session at Black Hat Europe in London.

“Our company has white-hat hackers hacking our own devices every day. We’ve tested more than a thousand devices and we’ve found more than 10,000 vulnerabilities before shipping, so they’re fixed,” said Lin.

But in order to ensure development teams have as much information about potential security vulnerabilities in products as possible, both unreleased and on-the-market products are placed in the honeypots, which are monitored to gain insight into how devices are attacked by real-world hackers.

“We deploy our real appliances as a honeypot and we collect attacks and malware targeting our devices. We can deploy products under development as well,” Osawa explained.

The Panasonic IoT threat-intelligence platform has been active for two years and in that time the company has collected information on about 30 million cyberattacks and 4,000 kinds of IoT malware – all attacks that are targeting real devices put through the security tests.

Some kinds of devices face more attacks than others: for example, the devices in the honeypots that face the most attacks are cameras – a type of IoT product that is often abused by hackers for nefarious purposes.