The world will soon be buzzing with tens of billions of networked devices. They could be anywhere, owned by anyone, and yet connected to a company’s system through the open Internet.
How can we make that many devices — all of those nodes on the Internet of Things – safe and secure? Humans alone can’t possibly do it. The era of IoT will require a new kind of cognitive security, so machines can learn how to take care of other machines.
IoT promises to transform business and society by bringing in data we never had before about people and things. Yet, as with many disruptive technologies, the IoT opens up new kinds of dangers, too.
Unlike the systems that IT departments have historically managed, today’s connected things don't obligingly stay within a company’s protected confines. They move around the world and they get connected by employees, contractors and customers; they get handled and manipulated.
A decade ago, as smart phones and tablets infiltrated our lives, information technology (IT) groups began to deal with the considerable security challenge of the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) era. The IoT era makes BYOD seem like child’s play, increasing the size and complexity of those challenges by vastly expanding the potential attack surface. The devices could be anywhere, installed by anyone. But too often, security of each device is an afterthought.
The ramifications became apparent in the fall of 2016, when hackers hijacked IoT devices such as DVR set-top boxes and home security cameras to launch a massive denial-of-service attack. A coordinated attack using consumer-purchased devices turned into an Internet infrastructure nightmare, denying access for much of the day to popular sites such as PayPal, Twitter and Spotify.
Imagine the potential consequences if attackers were to take control of connected IoT devices and caused them to operate in a dangerous manner. It’s already been shown that hackers can take control of a connected car.
