Is IOT Safe?

Source (http://moneytechsearch.com/dana-carvey-industrial-internet-and-the-internet-of-things/) Internet Of Things (IOT), this phrase has been in a lot of disussion in the past few years, but there has not been a singular definition on what the term actually means. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment” (Source: http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/internet-of-things/). According to Gartner the analyst firm, by 2020 there will be over 26 Billion connected devices. The concept of IOT is not limited to a particular industry, it will be bring about a significant change in all the industries mentioned in the below image as well all the other possibly imaginable industries. Sensors are used for data collection in various industries and some of the IOT use cases are as follows:

• Marketing & Sales
  • Customer understanding – Data collected from the sensors help in understanding the customer usage pattern, which would in turn help in the pricing models.
  • Flexible billing & pricing models based on customer understanding
• Manufacturing Industries
  • Connected quality/product usage analysis
  • Asset tracking
  • Real Time Monitoring
• Life Support
  • Automated Heating/Cooling Services
  • Healthcare Support with remote patient monitoring
  • Smart Meters for resources used in the house
  • Smart homes with alarms for fire, intrusion & other calamities
• Automotive Sector
  • Enhanced vehicle safety
  • Reduction of journey times
  • Stolen vehicle recovery
• Security
  • Monitoring
  • Video Surveillance

Although there have been a lot of talks about IOT, but the risks associated with IOT are still not clear, . This is just the beginning of IOT and a lot more time & money needs to be added for enhancing the security. A lot of secure data is being trasferred from various sensors & the data contained is sensitive, imagine in the healthcare industry where IOT is being deployed majorly if a wrong medication was given to a patient the outcome could be fatal. In addition to the above mentioned scenario there can be hacks in the your home network, which would allow access to smartphones and computers in that network or in your smart car where the steering or breaks could get locked. A secure way of communication needs to be developed between the sensors which collect the data and the customers who control it remotely before the IOT market develops to its full potential. AAA provides secure access and accounting capibilties for the data which has been collected from the devices as well as for storage of the user information data. AAA would also help in communication protocols for the sensors to send data to a central hub, which in turn would communicate with the smartphones and other portable devices. The major role of the Operator here is to provide uninterrupted data services, which in turn need to be captured and billed according to the data usage of the customer, Elitecore CSM products would help the Operators in Authentication and Accounting as well for usage metering for the data used by the remote devices.