M2M Security, Revisited

Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• Back in April, I wrote a blog on the growing problem of M2M security and how, in spite of the huge amount of data expected to be collected, transmitted and analyzed over the next five to ten years via a multiplicity of network access technologies, few vendors or service providers had put a stake in the ground with a set of security solutions devoted to M2M.
• Six months later, there seems to be growing awareness of the problem: M2M data is just as likely, if not more likely, to suffer from malware, breaches of corporate data stores, SMS phishing (or use as a medium for malware), denial of service, ‘botnets,’ and stolen confidential company and personal information to be used for a variety of malevolent purposes (including corporate competitors, intrepid hackers, or those looking to sell information for financial gain).

Imagine billions of unmanned sensors and machines with little or no supervision and with no built-in intelligence (or potentially built using an insecure OS).  Left to their own devices (pun intended), these sensors and machines amass and transmit vast quantities of information to remote servers in the cloud or behind the corporate firewall, without device and in-transit data encryption, or other traditional forms of security such as VPNs, personal firewalls, remote data wipe, intrusion/malware detection, or anti-virus software.  Should this be the future of M2M/the Internet of Things?