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T
he Internet of Things (IoT) promises to revo-
lutionize the way consumers and enterprises
interact with hardware in their daily lives –
making the connected world pervasive and in
some ways, inescapable. Against this backdrop, cyber-
security has come to the forefront and offers channel
partners a rich new vein of opportunity.
By 2020, there will be nearly 21 billion devices con-
nected to the Internet, including smart refrigerators, water
meters, wearables and even binoculars, according to
IDC. And according to Spiceworks research, the pres-
ence of IoT devices in the workplace has already rapidly
increased across the board in the last 18 to 24 months –
with networks having to handle everything from connected
video equipment to appliances, smartwatches to GoPros.
This state of affairs will make our all-digital lives that
much more productive, collaborative and efficient (in theory),
but there’s a significant downside. With so many connected
things out there, the threat landscape will only widen.
After all, each connection is a potential portal into a
consumer’s personal information, or an additional way
into an enterprise network rich with competitive and per-
sonal information.
Further complicating things, IoT also means the inter-
connection of devices within the existing Internet infra-
structure. So, everything is connected to the Internet but
also to each other. As such, IoT is expected to offer ad-
vanced connectivity of devices, systems and services that
goes beyond machine-to-machine communications (M2M)
with a variety of protocols, domains and applications.
CYBER PATROL
IoT cybersecurity is a snowballing channel opportunity
By
Tara
Seals
62
CHANNEL
VISION
|
July - August 2016