IOT Cybersecurity…. The World Of Unknown For Organizations And Nations!

Do we want to wait until the rise of weaponization of IoT, cyber-attacks leading to loss of human lives and chaos in the social order?

- Mayank Lau

Internet power to connect, communicate and remotely manage millions of networked devices is becoming pervasive. The market and nations are gung-ho about IoT phenomena globally and so does India. As per pundits, the IoT devices count would reach to 20 to 30 billion by 2020. McKinsey global institute research estimated the probable impact of the IoT on the global economy might reach $6.2 trillion by 2025. Along with it, the Indian market is poised to reach $15 Billion by 2020 as cited by a NASSCOM study “IoT in India - The Next Big Wave”. Consumers and organizations both are feeling the IoT gravitational pull in their respective ecosystems. Consumers are adopting the wearables and consuming services with the help of networked devices at public place or at home. Classic examples are smart watch, smart apparel, internet based glucometer etc. Industry has also experienced the transition from closed networks to enterprise networks to public internet to deliver its business leveraging industrial internet of devices (IIoT).

IIoT uses cases underlying IoT architectural components such as protocols, networks, sensors, associated IT systems and gateways warrant robust cyber security architecture to achieve the objective of end to end protection. One cannot imagine a non-secure future in which IoT devices surround us, optimizing time, furthering our wellbeing, improving our health and transforming workplace productivity. The trends in IoT security landscape by 2020 are, but not limited to, IoT security market is expected to reach nearly $29 billion by 2020, as per a report published by Markets and Markets, 50 percent of manufacturers would not be able to patch vulnerabilities in IoT devices, 2.5 % of attacks in an enterprise would be on IoT/IIoT, discovery, provisioning and authentication would eat significantly into IoT security budget and 50 % of large IoT implementation would require cloud security services.