Things outnumber people!
There are an estimated 23 Billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices already in use, but estimates of total human population are around 7.5 billion—so ‘’things’’ outnumber people by roughly three to one!
Different populations, of course, will have different ratios. It is very likely that in the more affluent, technological areas of the world the ‘things’ will outnumber people by ten to one, twenty to one or even more.
These ‘things’ are becoming more pervasive: our phones, computing devices, smart assistant devices, cars—even supposedly passive objects like lightbulbs—all have increasing amounts of connectivity and capability, even if some of them do not yet exhibit any kind of ‘intelligence’.
As you would expect, this year’s Institute of Information Security Professionals (IISP) congress included perspectives on the IoT, amongst others, with many of the sessions now available on YouTube.
Professor Paul Dorey (Director at CSO Confidential and Visiting Professor at the Royal Holloway University of London) discusses ‘Things in the Fog’, and expands on the concept of ‘fog computing’—where clouds come closer to the ground, and therefore closer to the people.
David Alexander (Head of IT Security Capability at PA Consulting) explains where some of the new risk paradigms inherent in IoT products, and their underpinning services, are to be found—and why he considers that IoT products should be regarded as ‘risk in a box’.
