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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