The ever Increasing connections that are being made between multiple devices through cloud-based systems is what is driving IoT deployments. At this same time, this connectivity is creating some of the biggest security risks in the IoT space. While IoT end points are delivering countless benefits to both businesses and consumers, we are still faced with growing and legitimate concerns about security and privacy. Anything that contains a smart sensor, when not designed and provisioned securely, can present serious security and privacy issues. Evidence of concerns in this regard can be seen in some of the actions being taken by government and industry groups. For instance, devices lacking secure storage and encryption that do not comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will cause stiff penalties for non-compliant IoT service and hardware providers. GDPR comes into effect in May of 2018. In addition to GDPR and other compliance regulations, we expect to see the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) also up the ante on their privacy guidance shortly. This makes it all the more critical that vendors, integrators, service providers and end users alike ensure that their IoT end point devices have the right security embedded in their hardware and software ecosystem.
Whether you leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve your business processes or your business is creating IoT solutions, you need to be aware of security risks you’ll face in 2018. In general, your best defense is preparation—which means identifying security needs at the beginning of any new IoT-based initiative rather than treating security as something that can be added on later. Let’s look at some of the known security pitfalls that could trip up your IoT business. Better still, let’s talk about how to avoid them.
