Is The IoT Cloud’s Biggest Security Concern?
The Internet of Things presents ample opportunities for entrepreneurship and investment in Cloud 2.0. Wearables and other cloud connected devices will surpass traditionally connected internet devices by the next decade. What many technology analysts are overlooking is that a printer connected to the internet could have a bigger security flaw versus well maintained enterprise grade operating system. This topic was discussed at lenth at the recent MIT’s Sloan CIO Symposium held earlier this week.
Patrick Gilmore, CTO for Markley Group mentions, “No one talks about what if your printer is hacked and every document your CEO printed is posted to a blog.”
Rob May from Backupify says, “You have a responsibility to protect your data. You can’t outsource all your security to a cloud vendor.”
Other firms are becoming more creative because they realize that traditional security methods are being exploited. Mark Morrison, CIO of State Street Corporation says that companies can no longer follow a simple check list that will guarantee the safety of their data. One such policy is having overly complex passwords. While this protects you against a traditional brute force attack, having overly complex passwords causes people to want to write down their passwords or store them in plain text which can present other vulnerabilities. Morrison compares password policies to “The equivalent of signing the back of a credit card.”
Upon first examination, May and Morrison’s points seem conventional. When you dig deeper down into their comments, it becomes clear the security isn’t something you can completely outsource. Cloud security doesn’t come in a “One size fits all” package. A strict set of guidelines alongside proactive measures will certainly help increase the security of your organization.
In Gilmore’s example, security minded corporations are shying away from desktop printers for CEOs for this very reason. Would you trust your CEO’s email on a wearable device? The answer is probably no however when you look at it that way, what is the difference between email on an untested wearable device or a personal printer on the CEO’s desktop manufactured by HP? Patrick Gilmore went on to say, “Cloud customers need to ask better questions.”
