AI-enabled IoT penetration testing: state-of-the-art and research challenges

ABSTRACT Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining importance as its applications are found in many critical infrastructure sectors (e.g., Industry 4.0, healthcare, transportation, and commercial facilities). This reinforces the importance of investigating the security risks associated with IoT deployment. Hence, in this paper, we perform a comprehensive review of the literature on penetration testing of IoT devices and systems. Specifically, a total of 99 articles published between 2015 and 2021 was reviewed to identify existing and potential IoT penetration testing applications and proposed approaches. We finally provide recent advances of AI-enabled penetration testing methods that can notably be performed at the network edge.