Published on : Dec 16, 2015
As the Internet of Things (IoT) rapidly connects devices with wireless technology, challenges to ensure data security has come at the forefront of organizations. With IoT connecting millions of devices and objects around the world, the sheer amount of date generated in the forthcoming years will be unfathomable. Analysts and market watchers claim IoT to develop at a slower pace than expected. But even at its nascent stage, IoT threatens data security and privacy across technology infrastructures.
Organizations today are increasingly adopting M2M (machine to machine) technologies to reinvent businesses. Even as economic, technological, and political factors come together to make M2M more attractive, they cannot deny the prevalence of high risk of getting their valuable data exposed to cyber perpetrators.
An astounding number of devices are integrating IoT technologies around the world without paying much attention to standardizing security protocols. In fact, for most cases it is non-existent. Experts say that even within a particular segment, not much agreement is noticed on the use of uniformly secure technology. As new technologies increasingly replace their precursors, government institutions and other organizations are preparing to alter their operations by implementing M2M and IoT strategies. However, prevalence of risk factors with regards to data security is threatening the large-scale implementation of M2M.
In response to looming cyber security threats, organizations and institutions are adopting their own approach to secure devices remotely connected. Unlike multi-functional smartphones that is managed by administrators, a majority of IoT/M2M devices are designed and deployed to perform specific roles. While a significant amount of effort has been focused on the development and standardization of security protocols for IoT infrastructure, safety and availability of industrial networking devices are still at a vulnerable stage.
It is therefore, imperative for manufacturers of IoT devices to have a good understanding of IoT security landscape. This is important to ensure that organizations don’t coin a business reason for getting things connected. If at any point business reasons win, manufacturers of IoT devices will have to invariably adopt to whatever is demanded for. This again will pose threats of cyber theft of valuable data and documents.