Why Security is a Top Priority for IoT Devices Now
With the number of personal devices per person going up every year, the problem with insecure devices is getting worst. World population has reached 7.7 billion in 2020 and there are over 50 billion of personal devices out there! And this works out to be about 6 personal devices per person. See Figure 1. A data breach could give away sensitive information on a massive scale, or leave the edge devices vulnerable to hackers.
Back in 2017, CloudPets teddy bears were withdrawn from the shelves following a data breach that exposed private information including photos and recordings of more than two million children’s voice messages. The supposedly private photos and voice messages were held for ransom. Many people were surprised that the seemingly harmless connected toys can be a cybersecurity threat. But it was not until the pandemic, people start taking it seriously.
With the pandemic and remote work, the problem with insecure home or personal devices exacerbated. In a study by Zscaler, they found a 700% increase in IoT-specific malware attacks over two weeks in December 2020 when compared with pre-pandemic findings. And while some 59% of the attacks were on devices in the manufacturing sector, Zscaler also discovered a number of unexpected home (or personal) devices connecting to the cloud such as digital home assistants, media players, smart refrigerators, musical lamps, set-top boxes, smart glasses, smart TVs, DVRs and smart watches etc. Read More...
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