Ensuring cybersecurity resilience in a connected world

The development of the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), the cloud and big data have enabled devices that started out as unbelievable concepts to become a reality. From a consumer standpoint, these ever-increasing trends are often taken for granted as people become accustomed to smart devices becoming more commonplace in all aspects of our everyday lives across all industries – a trend that will only continue to grow. According to Cisco IBSG, the number of connected devices will reach 50 billion by 2020, while IDG expects that 89% of enterprises will have plans to adopt or have already adopted digital technologies to create or modify business processes to meet the changing business and market requirements by the same year. This reimagining of business in the digital age is known as digital transformation. On face value, this is an impressive industry development. However, with the freedom to access the Internet comes serious cybersecurity threats. Having a competitive edge in service offering or innovation will not bring much success if there is a cyberattack on the business due to a small IoT device not being secure. It is these devices that are often forgotten but are the easiest for hackers to use to access the whole network. With this in mind, businesses need to learn more about IoT, including both benefits and the concerns, and change the way they protect their data and assets. Leaving the front door wide open is like inviting a criminal into your home – you just wouldn’t do it – yet that is essentially what happens when IoT devices are not secure as hackers are granted access to everything.