There is much talk of the Internet of Things — but what are these “things” and are we all okay with what they will be doing and (more crucially) their “behaviour and state” at any given moment in time?
We normally talk about the “things” in the Internet of Things as electronically empowered devices that usually (but not always) enjoy a connection to the Internet (or some other external data channel or network) such that they can ultimately (although sometimes there’s no waiting and it’s in real time) share the data they record or produce across the pipe.
Perhaps more clinically we should also call out these things as any entity, object, unit, article, constituent or component that has a “unique identifier” i.e. an electronic tag or name that confirms its state of being in the universe.
But is the Internet of Things secure?
The arrival of the Internet of Things (and the Internet of Everything for that matter) now means that our total security landscape is far broader and is in many places a comparatively unknown place. New connected devices, embedded computing points and sensors barely feature on even the most contemporary security strategy today – this has to change soon surely?
Intel, for its part, heeds a few cautionary controls and says that no single company (or person) can create the IoT. The firm (although yes, predominatly known for microprocessor manufacturing) says it has engineered an entire ecosystem to provide the hardware, software, tools, systems integration and network and cloud infrastructure needed to accelerate development and deployment of solutions that deliver intelligence from “things” to the cloud-driven networks that will most logically work alongside them.
“IoT is about moving from the transmission of raw data to local compute platforms. By placing real intelligence at the point of data, you can determine which data to save and which to send to the cloud. Being able to analyze the right data, and do so at the device, brings new efficiencies by accelerating and focusing data transmission and decision making [and from this comes security, management and control].”
