Back To The Basics: Security of Software Downloads for Smart Objects

Smart objects will soon pervade our homes, cities, factories, plants, and hospitals and this fact will introduce widespread important risks for the society as a whole, due to unavoidable security vulnerabilities of those objects. The problem of updating the software of smart objects in order to fix vulnerabilities will thus become of crucial importance. In this work we investigate the security of current software download environments for smart objects. This investigation allows gaining important insights into the security awareness of organizations that distribute software across the web and, more broadly, on their readiness to take control of our everyday life.