THE ROLE OF CRYPTOGRAPHY IN DATA SECURITY FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a foundational layer of modern digital infrastructure, connecting consumer devices, industrial sensors, smart cities, healthcare wearables, and critical systems. As adoption accelerates, the attack surface expands: IoT devices often operate with constrained CPU, memory, and power, yet they continuously generate and exchange sensitive data. Recent market tracking estimates that connected IoT devices reached about 18.5 billion in 2024 and are projected to grow to 21.1 billion in 2025, highlighting the scale at which security mechanisms must function reliably. In parallel, security telemetry and threat research show sustained exploitation of weak authentication, outdated firmware, insecure default configurations, and unencrypted communications conditions frequently leveraged by botnets and large-scale denial-of-service campaigns. This paper examines the role of cryptography as a primary control for confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation in IoT ecosystems. It also considers how cryptography must be implemented holistically supported by key management, secure update mechanisms, and device lifecycle governance to remain effective in real-world deployments. Using a qualitative descriptive internet-based study approach, this work synthesizes recent standards guidance and threat landscape reporting, including NIST’s updated foundational IoT cybersecurity activities and ENISA’s threat landscape framing. The discussion organizes cryptographic practices across device, network, and cloud layers, and evaluates common trade-offs such as computational cost, latency, usability, and maintainability. The findings emphasize that cryptography is necessary but insufficient alone; it must be integrated with secure-by-design engineering, robust identity, and operational monitoring to protect IoT data at global scale