Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Assaf Harel, Chief Scientist and Co-founder, Karamba Security
Smart cities will need to look to embedded security
Smart cities will look to embedded cybersecurity in the coming year, we will continue to see smart cities grow as connected systems becomes more commonplace. Smart cities deploy thousands of smart devices, communicating to the cloud with immense amount of data to power their operations. Malicious actors can disrupt and paralyze such smart devices with Remote Code Execution, altering their well-planned, fine-tuned operations. Infrastructure disruptions, direct liability and ransomware are just a few of the potential outcomes of losing control over these software defined systems.
Our utilities, schools and power grids are in danger
Attacks can go far beyond ransomware attempts. They can disable utilities, schools, and shopping centers, and take down an entire power grid. Losing control over the end point software, and thus the device functionality means that newly connected edge devices can also expose the entire city to risks, providing hackers with a point of entry from remote connected machines into the centralized database and operations. We will see more hacks in the coming year as cities continue to implement connected systems into their infrastructures. Compromised security in such environments can have a watershed effect.
##
About the Author
Assaf has broad experience with embedded, networking, security and mobile technologies. He was the Senior Research and Development (R&D) Manager at Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ:CHKP), overseeing the development of several innovative, emerging endpoint security products and technologies. Previously, he held software development positions at Metalink and Dune Networks. Assaf served in the elite intelligence unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). He received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. CumLaude in Computer Science from the Technion and an MBA CumLaude from Haifa University.
