PROTECTING THE CONNECTED LANDSCAPE

CHRISTOPHER DOBREC, VICE-PRESIDENT PRODUCT MARKETING, ARMIS, SPEAKS TO ANITA JOSEPH ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF IOT, THE CONVERGENCE OF IT & OT AND HOW ARMIS IS POSITIONED TO ADD VALUE.

- CHRISTOPHER DOBREC

Five years ago, IoT was the ‘next big thing’ – what’s the ‘next big thing’ that is beginning to emerge today?

The thing that’s emerging now, and it’s really a continuation of the trend, is really protecting all things that are connected to enterprise networks and the Internet. This is further enhanced by the various connectivity options that we’re having, including 5G, but the notion that these devices are connecting to these networks-billions of them-and the enterprises that are deploying them are reaping the benefits, because they are becoming more efficient and more productive. The thing to consider as we move forward is that these products were designed to connect, certainly, but they weren’t necessarily designed with built-in security in mind and so this has greatly expanded the overall attack surface and the risk landscape, and essentially these IoT and unmanaged devices they’re all basically computers and have processors and memory and run applications, but they can’t necessarily be managed or protected in the way traditional IT devices can, and so you need a really different approach for protecting them. So, the big thing, in my opinion, is nothing new emerging per se, but a continuation of the trend of an explosive growth of these things connecting by virtue of all the different connectivity options and the thing that we need to focus energy on, moving forward, is really how you protect them.

How are customers / CISOs preparing for that?