Yesterday's IoT Day calls for recognition of the evolution that the Internet of Things has had since the induction of this special day back in 2010. IoT has the ability to affect numerous aspects of individual's lives, whether that be through their business, health, transportation, living environments and more. Not only is it growing and evolving, it is continuously increasing it's inclusivity, as IoT can now be found in practically almost every industry. 

To help celebrate yesterday's holiday and bring recognition to the IoT space, we spoke with several industry experts to get their thoughts on how the market is evolving, and what we need to do to keep it secure.

Eltjo Hofstee, Managing Director, Leaseweb UK Ltd:

"Smart tech is all around us. From watches and homes, to offices and cars, ever-increasing data usage from consumers and businesses the world over continues to drive the upsurge in IoT. By 2020 it is expected to become a $9 trillion industry. A key contributing factor to the IoT's ongoing success is the prevalence of the cloud and low latency networks, which are quickly accessible, enable easy deployment and inter-device communication, support data analytics, and help minimise security risks. IT and business leaders who take this into account as they re-evaluate data strategies, learning as much as possible about the benefits of cloud and specifically hybrid cloud, will be ahead of the curve in planning for a future with ubiquitous IoT," said Eltjo Hofstee, managing director of Leaseweb UK Ltd.

Pramod Borkar, Technical Marketing Leader, Exabeam:

"The challenge of securing IoT is complex and extensive due to the fact that IoT devices are deployed over a wide attack surface and contain numerous threat vectors, such as authentication and authorization, software, device threats, network threats, and OS level vulnerabilities. In addition, despite the initiative in developing and deploying innovative IoT use cases, a general lack of standards remains. Organizations often aren't implementing needed security governance, policies, and compliance. Compounding the problem, many IoT devices aren't part of a rigorous patch or upgrade routine, leaving them open to security vulnerabilities.

The most important step in securing IoT devices is to view them as assets or entities that are open to attacks in multiple ways. It's essential to understand IoT device baseline behavior to be able to identify deviations from established patterns. This enables you to pinpoint rogue activities, such as insider threats for obtaining compromised credentials, accessing sensitive data, and lateral movement within the network. Profiling the authorized person(s) who accesses each IoT device provides important data on its valid use and overall health," said Pramod Borkar, technical marketing lead at Exabeam.

Bryan Becker, DAST Product Manager, WhiteHat Security:

"Devices such as security systems, smart watches and appliances have definitely made our lives and work easier, but they do not come without a cost. IoT devices create a wealth of opportunities to compromise a network (be it at home or in the office), and can be used as a foothold for more serious attacks. According to an IDC global survey, 56 percent of enterprises plan to incorporate IoT in the next two to three years. Security professionals must adopt a solid IoT security strategy with practices such as educating themselves on potential vulnerabilities, investigating security technologies that can help fortify products against outside threats and ensuring security is purpose-built into every aspect of the ecosystem that is running their IoT product, service or device," said Bryan Becker, DAST product manager at WhiteHat Security.

Neil Barton, CTO, WhereScape:

"We are in the middle of an IoT explosion. With an expected 20 billion IoT devices by 2020, the resulting volume of data to be generated can be overwhelming to consider, and will be underutilized without the appropriate data infrastructure in place to leverage it. Technologies, such as streaming data automation, can help companies to minimize any struggle around ingestion by helping IT teams to rapidly design, develop, deploy and operate the processing infrastructure needed. With real-time processing, companies can gain a competitive edge and insight into their business which will open opportunities for revenue growth, cost savings and operational improvements," said Neil Barton, CTO, WhereScape.

Alan Conboy, Office of the CTO, Scale Computing:

"Reflecting on IoT Day, this year will be a defining year for edge and hybrid computing strategies as IoT and the global network of sensors pile on more data than the average cloud has had to handle in the past. This transition will officially crown edge computing as the next big thing. According to a study from IDC, 45 percent of all data created by IoT devices will be stored, processed, analyzed and acted upon close to or at the edge of a network by 2020. In the process, edge computing will take on workloads that struggle on hosted cloud environments, passing the torch over to HCI platforms," said Alan Conboy, office of the CTO, Scale Computing.

Todd Kelly, Chief Security Officer, Cradlepoint:

"Cybersecurity concerns are real when it comes to IoT but by using expert cloud-based management platforms and software-defined perimeter technologies, they can be effectively addressed. On IoT Day and every day, it's important to remember there will always be IoT devices that are compromised and vulnerabilities that are exposed but just as we've built these technologies, we've also built the safety constructs to protect them. If we commit to tried and true security practices while adopting new approaches that leverage wireless, software-defined and cloud technologies we don't have to let our concerns unduly impact our progress," said Todd Kelly, chief security officer at Cradlepoint.

Brett Cheloff, Vice President, ConnectWise Automate, ConnectWise:

"Today, data dominates our personal lives, finances, and - with the adoption of big data - our businesses. Maintaining data integrity as it takes over so many major decisions is a top priority. More devices are connected to the Internet than ever before. From smartphones to watches, fitness apps, and smart homes, the Internet of Things (IoT) raises potential security risks.  Per a report from the Ponemon Institute, IBM, and Arxan, a staggering 80% of IoT applications and 71% of mobile applications are not tested for vulnerabilities, raising more concerns for data security.

"As the industry changes to meet the needs of a new tech generation, security will continue to evolve, and industry leaders will be closely monitoring the changes.  With security built right into new solutions, managed service providers should be looking to their own tools to sync, support, and secure," said Brett Cheloff, vice president of ConnectWise Automate.

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