Unfortunately, not everything is bright in this forecast. As comfortable and powerful IoT devices might be, they also bring a looming threat. Billions of interconnected devices mean that there’s a bigger tech surface that malicious attackers can target. And given that cybersecurity has become the biggest priority for businesses everywhere, the question emerges naturally – what can we do to secure that vast device network?
The protection challenge
To truly understand the dangers that come with job function email list the IoT, we have to go beyond the number of available devices and into their nature. Most IoT devices are relatively simple in that they haven’t that much processing power or storage capacity. Given that they are constantly connected to the internet, they don’t need to, as most of the data is processed and stored in central servers.
Edge computing (often referred to as a huge advantage for this kind of network) increases the appeal of IoT devices. Through that paradigm, devices can gather and process data on-site, without sending it to central servers. The idea is to reduce bandwidth consumption while increasing responsiveness. However, using edge computing means that all of the IoT devices that use it will have sensitive data that makes hacking them more enticing for attackers.
What can we do
The most important thing we can do right now how to get the most out of technology is to understand the dangers and recognize the need for action. The positive side is that there are several actors already taking steps to develop stronger protections for the IoT (including the Congress and its Cybersecurity Improvement Act). The downside is that we need far more than that – we need a coordinated approach to dealing with IoT security, something that today rests mostly on the manufacturers of the devices themselves.
Beyond the awareness and the potential regulation, we need a strategic approach to securing such a vast network.
A fundamental issue
Finally, there’s another point that’s important saudi data I mention. As David Russo, one of my BairesDev colleagues, smartly pointed out in his article We need to fix the Internet of Things is that the IoT is fundamentally flawed. That flaw? In David’s own words, that many IoT manufacturers “aren’t entirely committed to making the best products, just making them usable with the customers acting as beta testers.”