Imagine a scenario where some malevolent being has gained access to Earth’s secrets and data by controlling all our 50 billion network connected devices. This might be an extreme analogy but it’s a good way to highlight the way in which our increasingly connected world has left us closer yet more vulnerable than ever.
It’s useful to think of your business as a castle with strong perimeter walls, no windows and a single impenetrable gate. Your business’ sensitive information, personnel and data are, in theory, all protected from the dangers of the outside world.
In this context, connecting to the Internet is the same as allowing trusted personnel in and out of the gate with guards validating them as they come and go. With unsecured IoT, the castle is exposed by creating multiple doors all the way around the walls, allowing unrestricted access from the outside. You have now turned your castle into a tourist attraction, potentially allowing anyone in the world to come and enter through multiple entrances.
It’s not all doom and gloom however. By the same token, using Internet connected devices in business safely and correctly will provide considerable advantages to productivity, communication, operation and visibility and this should be harnessed. There are many business devices that could benefit from being connected to networks.
