Using graph databases to assess the security of thingernets based on the thingabilities and thingertivity of things

Security within the IoT is currently below par. Common security issues include IoT device vendors not following security best practices and/or omitting crucial security controls and features within their devices, lack of defined and mandated IoT security standards, default IoT device configurations, missing secure update mechanisms to rectify security flaws discovered in IoT devices and the overall unintended consequence of complexity - the attack surface of networks comprising IoT devices can increase exponentially with the addition of each new device. In this paper we set out an approach using graphs and graph databases to understand IoT network complexity and the impact that different devices and their profiles have on the overall security of the underlying network and its associated data.