The Internet of Things (IoT) has exciting new potential to improve human life, but can you trust it? IoT refers to systems that connect humans, non-human physical objects, and cyber objects, enabling monitoring, automation, and decision-making—technology that is now utilized in almost every aspect of personal life, government, and industry. The ubiquitous nature of IoT in the modern world logically leads to questions of trustworthiness and the potential of new technology to be leveraged for malicious purposes. These concerns are not necessarily matters of direct risk assessment, but rather a high-level consideration of whether an IoT product or service can provide desired operations at an acceptable level of quality.

To consider these questions, NIST is releasing a draft white paper for public comment, Internet of Things (IoT) Trust Concerns. It identifies seventeen technical trust-related issues that may negatively impact the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) products and services. This set was derived from the six trustworthiness elements in NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-183, Networks of ‘Things’. The draft white paper offers recommendations for addressing these concerns, suggests additional areas of research regarding the subject of “IoT trust,” and provides readers with a broad understanding of the topic.

A public comment period for this draft document is open until November 16, 2018.

[The content in this white paper was originally released on 9/17/18 as Draft NISTIR 8222, which was temporarily withdrawn to synchronize with other pending documents on this topic.]