The brave new world of IoT

Last year, GFI conducted a survey with IT admins to gauge what their feeling were about the Internet of Things. Questions ranged from the kind of disruptions IT pros are expecting to face to what kind of defenses do they believe need to be put in place to combat the threat that IoT might bring about. The findings were very interesting and we’ve compiled the salient points in this short video:

Things have changed rapidly in a year. News of a kitchen refrigerator being part of a group of 100,000 home appliances that sent over 750,000 phishing emails started a discussion about the security threats of seemingly harmless objects which switched over to the darkside through the simple installation of an IP.

With wearable tech becoming more appealing to the public and the US being hailed as ‘a smartphone nation,’ it’s only safe to conclude IoT has stepped from being a buzzword to reality. Organizations need to keep up with this brave new world as it opens them up to security threats, challenges in controlling and managing devices and worst of all, an increase in IT management costs.

The GFI survey showed the IoT disruption is a cause for concern for more than half of the respondents (55%) who said they are worried of its impacts as it will impose new security threats and extend these to a larger number of devices.

Adaptation will be a key element in future decision-making and policies will need to be set up so that organizations can have better control of what is connected to their networks. Endpoints will need to be better secured and managed and it is no surprise firewalls was the solution most of those surveyed considered top priority, with mobile device management coming in second.