An In-depth Analysis on Vulnerability Discovery Systems for Embedded Systems
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Ramnath, Geoffrey
- Area of Honors:
- Cybersecurity Analytics & Operations
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Taegyu Kim, Thesis Supervisor
Nick Giacobe, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Internet of Things
Embedded Systems
Cybersecurity - Abstract:
- The number of embedded systems, or IoT devices, has been growing exponentially over the past few years. This growth is expected to continue throughout the next decade as there are currently about 15.14 billion IoT devices, with the number doubling by 2030, reaching a total of 29.42 billion systems (Li., et al, 2023). IoT systems are essential to modern society, as they are pillars for our information infrastructure and day-to-day operations. These devices have a unique architecture compared to traditional phones, tablets, laptops, and computers, which creates multiple negative security complications. Due to this, IoT devices have become increasingly challenging for security professionals to effectively manage consistently. This has created a major security gap among IoT devices that continues to grow by the day. There have been many cyberattacks focused on IoT devices in recent years, such as the Mirai botnet, which infected hundreds of thousands of IoT systems. Due to this security gap, analysts have developed multiple methodologies for detecting vulnerabilities in these systems. This paper will review and discuss the threat of embedded system security, the different architectures and designs of these systems, and multiple approaches for vulnerability detection and firmware analysis. We will also consider the best approach developed for locating and mitigating different vulnerabilities through surveying different tools using a developed set of criteria. Then we will analyze the results generated by the tools and methods and discuss the future implications of embedded system security.