A new survey found the internet-connected devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT) is creating a lot of security threats for consumers and a number of industries that count on the technology.
Cybercrime is on the rise and could cost businesses upwards of $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to research firm Cybersecurity Ventures.
By connecting machines to the cloud, revolutionary new approaches to customer service and process automation can begin to thrive, predictive maintenance being one of the fastest-growing business lines.
Critical to the success of disciplines such as predictive maintenance or process automation is the ability to connect these machines to the cloud. The majority of machines are not designed with native internet connectivity built in, and certainly not wireless connectivity. They are typically designed to be securely connected to control systems (such as SCADA) which monitor and manage them via fixed cable connectivity.
Netsparker, a web applications security company, ran a poll of web developers with the help of Propeller Insights that found a majority of experts believe government agencies and financial institutions are most vulnerable to attack, and IoT devices are contributing to the problem.
Nearly two-thirds of developers responding to the survey—61 percent—said they believe government organizations are the most vulnerable to hacking, likely in part due to being a high-value target and the general reliance on legacy systems.
Fifty percent of people ruled the financial industry to be vulnerable to attack—a fact that has played out in recent months as banks have fallen victim to hackers.
There is a wide assumption, often true, that many firms overlook security when designing industrial internet of things products. Connectivity products are often sold with old software and glaring holes in their operating systems, which ultimately makes it easier for hackers to get ahold of data and sometimes take control of devices. On top of this, customers often fail to implement the proper safeguards that come with technology. As many as half of employees use the same two or three passwords to access confidential information. The result of these issues is inevitably breaches, which in turn makes customers skeptical when they examine integrating IoT as part of efforts to automate key business applications. Research by Forrester argued that for this reason, among others, 2017 is likely to see a wide-scale IoT breach.