Vivien Raoul, Pradeo co-founder & CTO, urges enterprises to rethink security for growing IoT.
Mobile devices substantially changed the way we consume information, immersing us in an always-online world. Naturally, connected “things” arrived, further extending our connected selves and streamlining day-to-day activities through connected homes, cars, health, cities and just about any other system we interact with.
Now, as the well-named Internet of Things (IoT) becomes well integrated into our society, many are awakening to the reality that the connected things they’re coming to depend on may not be as secure as they thought.
Surrounded by Connected Things: A Fast-Approaching Reality
The Global Mobile Trends 2017 report by GSMA Intelligence shows IoT is projected to most propel overall connected devices (also including smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops and data terminals) from roughly 15 billion in 2017 to around 22 billion in 2020.
Smartphones and tablets might be reaching the end of introducing new functionality, but IoT marks a new chapter in digital innovation. Mobile devices will likely become a gateway to interact with a wide range of connected things through applications.
Through IoT, companies aim to ease our daily lives, and we can only guess the application scope that will be developed in the near future. We can already assume IoT will play a critical role in improving healthcare, transforming transportation, automating manufacturing, personalizing retail and banking, making energy infrastructures more efficient and building smart cities.
IoT Security Should Not Be Taken Lightly
GSMA Intelligence reports the, “Consumer segment currently dominates IoT connections, but [the] enterprise is set to be [a] key source of growth going forward.”
IoT devices not only add value to the enterprise but also open up new attack surfaces and a broad spectrum of opportunity to hackers. Enterprises are connecting more IoT devices to corporate networks—smartwatches, cars, industrial equipment, office equipment—and as a result, are expanding their vulnerabilities and exposing their infrastructure and data to new threats.
Today’s solutions dedicated to device management and security must demonstrate both scalability and a breadth of management capabilities to support a variety of platforms and devices.
Given the sheer volume of IoT and variety of connected things, companies and governments need to structure networks accordingly to prepare. Today’s solutions dedicated to device management and security must demonstrate both scalability and a breadth of management capabilities to support a variety of platforms and devices.
Applications, being the primary medium to access IoT, present another key security consideration. This includes securing the “app-to-object” chain to prevent connected things from being jeopardized. Pradeo’s Mobile Application Security Guide goes into more detail on key threat vectors and the optimal mobile application security path to counter attacks.
About Pradeo
As a member of the VMware Mobile Security Alliance, Pradeo helps companies meet end-to-end mobile security requirements. Pradeo provides a set of solutions, including mobile endpoint protection, app self-defense runtime and mobile application security testing, to identify security flaws, set a robust security framework and automatically prevent attacks.
Pradeo next-generation technology, recognized by Gartner for the fourth consecutive year, provides reliable threat detection thanks to its patented artificial intelligence process.
Interested in learning more about Pradeo? Check out pradeo.com and the VMware Workspace ONE Marketplace for more information.
About the Author
Since 2008, Vivien Raoul, Pradeo’s co-founder and chief technical officer, has committed himself to creating a next-generation technology that provides reliable mobile device threat detection and master applications. Pradeo Security solution is the result of several years of research and development and takes mobile security to the next level.
