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Security still major challenge for Internet of things

Simnikiwe Mzekandaba
By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT in government editor
Cape Town, 28 Sept 2016
IOT security challenges will continue right through to 2020, says David Willis, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst.
IOT security challenges will continue right through to 2020, says David Willis, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst.

The Internet of things (IOT) will become the foundation of the digital society; however, security still remains a grave issue that must be addressed before adopting an interconnected world in industries.

This is according to David Willis, Gartner VP and chief of research for mobility and digital workplace, during his presentation on "The IOT scenario" on the last day of the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016.

For the past three days, Gartner analysts, CIOs and senior IT executives gathered at the Cape Town International Convention Centre to discuss how organisations can achieve a digital business, as well as how to deal with the implications that come with the shift towards digital.

Willis told the audience that IOT is part of a wider big business picture, therefore bringing change to security and risk within industries.

Massive amounts of data will flow out of these systems, he said. "Given the capabilities that these systems will have, we think that the risk officer will have the responsibility for not only securing risk but also the private safety and quality of problems as well."

He continued: "As we've seen historically, security people need to be facilitators in this mix, not just the people who are going to stop things. The history of security has always been about new security technologies enabling organisations to open up paradoxically.

"The goal here for securing people is to understand how they can keep the organisation secure but also allow it to open up for new possibilities."

Willis added that IOT security challenges will continue to grow. "Between 2014 and 2020, we will see a fourfold increase in the number of connected devices in the world, growing from seven billion to just over 25 billion. This means all those devices will be able to do more than just collect data, which exposes all sorts of vulnerabilities.

"We think about 25% of identified attacks by 2020 will involve connected things at some level. This is up in a major way from where we are today."

Most IT departments are not quite ready for this, according to Willis. "With current budget projections, we estimate about 10% of IT security budgets will be devoted to IOT in 2020."

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