Bench Talk

Late last year, the Internet was disrupted by a wave of attacks that knocked prominent sites offline, affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world. The victims included users of Amazon, PayPal, The New York Times, government websites, GitHub, Twitter, Netflix, Xbox Live, and more than 70 other major sites.

Sometimes, it seems like the Internet of Things (IoT) concept is being shoehorned into markets which don’t need it—or at least, aren’t ready for it. But there are undeniable synergies between the IoT and healthcare applications, particularly medical devices that are wearable (or even implanted under the skin).

One has to admire the flexibility exhibited by the custodians of Bluetooth, the popular short-range 2.4-GHz wireless technology. Enhancements to the standard’s specification sanctioned by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) have allowed it to evolve in directions that the inventors can scarcely have imagined. This combination of foresight—and a little luck—have brought considerable commercial success for the technology and could see it expand to northwards of three billion annual shipments as early as next year, according to analyst IHS.

While the term „Internet of Things“ first turned up in 1985 (when the Internet as we know it today was not even a prospect yet), the need for an „industrial“ subset has been recognized only in the early 2000s. Today, Industrial IoT is being implemented far more rapid than a more generic IoT, and – believe it or not – the key drivers for that came out of Europe.

IoT—the “Internet of things” —is the buzzword for one of the main global industry trends encompassing more than networking. Security is one of the main technology challenges in both, communications between systems as well as between individual modules.

More scary stories of IoT run amok and DDoS destruction

Scary stories of IoT run amok and DDoS destruction

Business schools teach would-be marketing executives about the major stages in a product’s lifecycle. A key lesson covers the critical transition between initial sales to relatively few early adopters and the device’s take-up by the mainstream market. Variously described as the “void”, “desert,” or perhaps most familiarly “chasm” (named for Geoffrey A. Moore’s bestselling book about marketing and selling disruptive products, Crossing the Chasm), it’s the point at which a product has gained some momentum but not enough for mainstream consumers to start buying it in big numbers. Many promising inventions from start-ups and established firms alike have disappeared without a trace into the chasm, closely followed by cash flow drying up.

The Internet was not built with security in mind. It was built predominantly by researchers looking to pass around scientific data. The assumption was that only good players would ever have access to the systems that eventually gave rise to the Internet we all know today. We have made significant progress with security in the decades since the Internet first became accessible to the public, but the cat and mouse game between the good guys and bad guys continues.

Data security is a very hot topic at the moment. It’s rare to get through a day without hearing news of a large corporation or an individual getting ‘burnt’. That’s hardly surprising when virtually every facet of our lives involves technology and the storage of data: the streets of every town are thronged with people glued to their smartphones, just managing their daily existence. Of course, the more reliant on technology we become, the more complex the picture becomes, with increasing levels of product interconnectivity. Nowhere is this more evident than with the Internet of Things (IoT).