The Internet of Things, or IoT, is here and has spread into all aspects of our lives. 
From telematics in automobiles allowing the advancement of driverless cars and trucks through vehicle-to-vehicle communication, to smart homes, and even toys for children. While this progress towards a fully integrated system between the Internet and objects often provides benefits to our lives, it also provides black hats, the bad kind of hacker, with more opportunities.
In January 2018 Tech Pro Research examined 518 cybersecurity predictions from 83 organizations, and IoT security ranked as the number one concern for the third year in a row. In fact, CloudBees believes that IoT security breaches will more than double 2017’s numbers. With the rise of smart homes and connected vehicles, the stakes are now higher than app-controlled lightbulbs. Entire home automation systems can be at risk of being held ransom just like computers affected by ransomware. Early adopters may even see their IoT devices be hijacked and turned into botnets to deliver DDoS attacks through malware such as Mirai.
In light of all this, cybersecurity has become even more important as another entry point into our networks has opened up to bad actors. Industry leaders are predicting two major tech convergences that will tighten IoT security; 1) Artificial Intelligence, or deep learning, based systems will begin to be deployed to manage and secure IoT systems. 2) Blockchain technology will help encrypt and record details involving the soon to be billions of transactions taking place between IoT machines.
These approaches to IoT security will minimize human involvement and allow IoT interactions to self-regulate, which is a good thing because 11 billion IoT devices – excluding computers and phones - are predicted to be connected by the end of this year. However, at this time, these methods are not viable. Currently, CHR Solutions, with its partner Webroot, is providing multi-layered protection powered by global threat intelligence and 5th generation machine learning securing our client’s IoT deployment.
