IoT & Automation

Cybersecurity has developed a high profile in many organisations over the past few years. But, who wants to be a Chief Information Security Officer these days? And at which stage in your career should you consider the move? What balance of managerial and technical experience do you need to have?  And where do you go from there? Those would be valid questions for many executive positions but when it comes to the role of the CISO, they seem to acquire a different meaning.

Interconnected IoT devices are deployed primarily to collect data. Algorithms analyze numerous data parameters and identify trends that then enable applications to deliver innovative services. Because data is at the center of IoT, and because this data is often associated with the people who are ultimately the recipients of the services, keeping the data confidential is paramount. We discuss the three most important things you should do before you dive into IoT, and how you can identify common pitfalls to ensure you adopt this new technology with confidence.

IoT security issues arise from ill-advised prioritization and the inherently short-term culture of the tech world. Security should be seen as a fundamental requirement for any IoT product—even MVPs. As the attitude of consumers and regulators shifts around those matters, it’s becoming a simple matter of good business. Frankly, given the virulence and widespread nature of cyber threats, the need to take security seriously and embed it natively into IoT products should be seen as a simple matter of common sense for product developers and investors.

Adopting IoT tools for the retail environment allows customers to interact both directly and indirectly with everything in the store. This presents incredible business opportunities. It can be daunting trying to step into the IoT space, though, and that fact keeps many businesses from embracing a lucrative transformation. Delivering a personalized, unique experience with IoT devices presents more than a simple opportunity to boost sales. You also establish a closer relationship with buyers and potential buyers, generating customer affinity and increasing brand equity.

Equipment deployed in construction, agriculture, and healthcare can benefit from IoT-enabled predictive maintenance and asset tracking. There’s also a developing opportunity to use IoT to enable new business models for providers of such assets that can shift to delivering them on an “as-a-service” basis. Cloud-based IoT connectivity management platforms can support delivery of such applications on a flexible and cost-effective basis, even enabling dynamic pricing changes. Connectivity among people, things, and businesses is increasing exponentially. Old business models and processes are being rethought and new ones are emerging.

Within the field of computer networking, there are examples of solutions that have been implemented to understand infrastructure dependencies.  As an example, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones and network switches can determine the precise point of connectivity using a protocol known as Link Layer Discovery Protocol. In the Internet of Things (IoT), such a nifty standardized mechanism to determine dependencies does not exist. Here we explore examples of where sensors with this embedded ability would be useful and would contribute to the overall better experience and greater reliability.

IoT-enabled services are being adopted to provide user-friendly and aesthetic ways to address retail loss prevention. However, certain post-deployment observations have revealed some issues with IoT, relating to customer experience and the technology’s ineffectiveness in addressing the real reasons for which it was originally deployed. IoT technology alone may not be the answer to solve certain business problems. As we have seen with the retail article tethering case, sometimes traditional and technological solutions may be complementary and have to co-exist, unless the technology is robust enough to overcome all possible user experience issues associated with its adoption.

One of the big promises of IoT is understanding the physical world around us and taking action based on insights and observations. Often, every millisecond counts—especially for use cases like earthquake monitoring. We need to build real-time networks for these mission-critical scenarios that can keep up. We have sensors everywhere distributed across nature and remote areas of the world—always on and always streaming new readings as they happen. This has transformed our understanding of how we work and live because we have more up-to-the-second data and analysis than ever before.

Industrial Internet of Things is the next industrial revolution, bringing dramatic changes and improvements to almost every sector. But to be sure it’s successful, there is one big question: how can organizations manage all the new Things that are part of their organizations’ landscapes? The industrial IoT is all about value creation: increased profitability, revenue, efficiency, and reliability. It starts with the target of safe, stable operations and meeting environmental regulations, translating to greater financial results and profitability. But there’s more to the IoT picture than that. Building the next generation of software for Things is a worthy goal.

To reduce risk, IT teams need to minimize the threats they’re exposed to, the vulnerabilities that exist in their environments, or a combination of both. From the business side, management may also decide to evaluate the business impact of each data asset and take measures to reduce it. The central risk team must assign risk values of high, medium, or low for the potential loss of each valuable data asset. Using this process, a company can determine which data asset risks need to be prioritized.

Business leaders in advanced economies see cyberattacks as their single biggest threat, even more so than terrorist attacks. This is no surprise because the business risks associated with cybercrime are growing along with companies’ ever-increasing dependence on technology. Moreover, the massive growth in the use of smart devices has opened up a universe of new ways for cybercriminals to launch attacks through large-scale botnets. Modern corporate innovation and growth must be balanced against cyber-risk and IT stability.