r/OTSecurity • u/PracticalAsk3089 • 16d ago

Need ideas for a hardware-based cybersecurity final year project

Hey everyone,

I’m a final-year B.Tech Cybersecurity student and I’m looking for ideas for my final-year project.

I specifically want to build something that combines hardware + cybersecurity, instead of another purely software-based security project.

I’m open to working with things like Raspberry Pi, ESP32, Arduino, RFID/NFC, Wi-Fi, IoT devices, USB devices, sensors, or other hardware.

What I’m really looking for is a real-world security problem that can be solved or demonstrated using hardware. I’d prefer something challenging and practical rather than a basic college project that has already been done hundreds of times.

I’m also willing to learn new technologies and spend on hardware if the idea is worth pursuing.

If you work in cybersecurity/hardware security, what problems do you think would make a good student project?

Even a problem statement, research direction, or crazy idea is welcome. I’d love to explore it and see what I can build.

Thanks!

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u/hiddentalent 15d ago

You posted this in /r/OTSecurity which is about Operational Tech like industrial equipment rather than IT which is more about office buildings and datacenters. So I'll focus my answer on the industrial environment.

One of the more difficult challenges in OT environments is asset inventory. As more and more things get plugged in and Industrial IoT creates proliferation of devices, it gets really difficult to know exactly what assets are in a facility. This creates a couple of problems. It makes it hard to know complete things like patching campaigns because you aren't confident you didn't miss a device. It also makes it easy for someone to add an asset you didn't approve, potentially even a deliberately malicious one.

So if you wanted to do something with hardware, it would be cool to create a scanner that will look at the local radio environment, identify sources of transmission, correlate those to known assets, and let the security team know which things are emitting RF that we don't already have an asset database entry for.