The Internet of Things (IoT) means that an increasing number of “things” are connected to the internet. It’s coming, and it is going to change the industry.
Read the now well-known story how hackers managed to compromise completely a Jeep Cherokee in Wired. Don’t you find that scary? And that is just the start of the problem as more and more objects get connected.
We can heap up all sorts of security layers, once something is connected to the internet, it will always be possible with sufficient effort to hack it (it needs to be worth the effort of course!). The questions about security, safety and privacy linked to the Internet of Things are substantial, and they have no obvious answer yet. This excellent article in Forbes summarizes the challenges. Now it is clear that for the moment “Connectivity [of things] has outpaced security“.
The winners in the Internet of Things space will be those that implement a comprehensive security approach – like those who won in the area of peer-to-peer online payments (like paypal) were ultimately those who were the best at avoiding fraud. It is about implementing a comprehensive systemic approach to security, and not a device-based approach.
