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Securing the IOT

Kirsten Doyle
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 25 Mar 2015
Security is key to unlocking the full potential of IOT, says Dimension Data's Samresh Ramjith.
Security is key to unlocking the full potential of IOT, says Dimension Data's Samresh Ramjith.

The Internet of things (IOT) is a vast, complex space which has different meanings to different industries, and is forcing us to re-think our approach to security at layers of the security stack.

So says Samresh Ramjith, chief solution and marketing officer at Dimension Data Security Solutions MEA, who will be present on "Securing the Internet of things" at ITWeb Security Summit 2015, to be held from 26 to 28 May at Vodacom World in Midrand.

He describes an IOT world as comprising three distinct environments: machine-to-machine communications, person-to-machine communications, and person-to-person communications.

"Industries that deal with 'human' information, such as personal details or special personal information, would still require that IOT environments be capable of enforcing data security, confidentiality and compliance standards and/or legislation.

"Environments that deal with streams of real-time sensor information, such as in a machine-to-machine automation environment, would focus more on the temporal integrity of the data rather than the confidentiality. In all cases, the availability constraints would remain constant."

He cites the medical industry as an example. "The medical industry may regard an aspect of the IOT to be consumer grade wearable technologies that record patient data to a mobile app for processing. Summary information can then be forwarded to a medical practitioner for further processing.

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"The data from the sensor is not sensitive by itself, but combined with the patient information and other demographic information in the mobile app, it becomes special personal information and needs to be securely stored, used and destroyed."

He believes there is a need for a standards body, made up of device manufacturers and software vendors, which can define the standards and frameworks for data security and secure channels. "Security is the key to unlocking the IOT's potential - it is critical that security needs be addressed now and be 'baked' into the fabric of the IOT to ensure we don't end up creating an overwhelming, virtually unstoppable security nightmare."

To hear Ramjith and over 30 other infosec subject matter experts speak, click here to find out more about ITWeb Security Summit 2015 and to register.

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