In this Dec 2017 installment of Patent Pipeline, we take a look at the latest patents covering IoT security. As more and more “things” are networked together into the ever-growing Internet of “Things,” keeping those networks secure will be a greater and greater challenge. As more and more devices are added to an Iot network, the opportunity for that network to be hacked grows exponentially. And when devices from different businesses or organizations are networked together, there will need to be some type of universal inter-organizational technology that will protect the network from intruders.

Unique Identifier to Authenticate Messages

First up is U.S. Patent No. 9,319,404 for “Security for the Internet of Things.” It is the first of two patents from independent inventor Jerome Svigals, and it was issued last April. This patent includes two hardware-based and software-controlled solutions.

Fixed and Variable Portion Identifiers

U.S. Patent No. 9,432,378 for “Internet-of-Things Security” is also the creation of independent inventor Jerome Svigals. Granted just over a year ago, this patent covers smart devices on a network that are identified and verified by their fixed-portion and variable-portion identifiers. It is a hardware and software solution that takes the technology from his previous patent to a new level.

Aggregating Decrypted Data into Data Sets

U.S. Patent No. 9,479,485 for a “Network Security Method and Network Security Servo System” was issued just last year to Wistron Corporation, a Taiwan-based provider of support services for design, manufacture and after-sales services for information and communication technology products. This patent uses encrypted and decrypted data among IoT devices to authenticate them within a network, and is a software solution.

Testing Transaction Protocol to Verify a Device

U.S. Patent No. 9,510,195 for “Secured Transactions in Internet-of-Things Embedded Systems Networks” was also granted last year to the Dutch semiconductor giant, STMicroelectronics International N.V. In a world of man-to-machine and machine-to-machine interfaces, it is important to note that the technology covered by this patent is totally machine-to-machine and does not require a human interface! It is a hardware solution that uses an integrated circuit that is separate from the network to verify communications within the network by testing the integrity of the transaction’s protocol

Digital Token that Decrypts a Digital Certificate

U.S. Patent No. 9,716,595 for a “System and Method for IoT Security and Management” was issued just this year to T-Central, Inc. Doing business as “TrustCentral,” T-Central designs and develops online security solutions, specifically security architecture for mobile platforms. This patent uses software to create a digital token that decrypts digital certificates assigned to devices on the IoT network.