How do you eat an elephant? It is an old joke, but when it comes to the Internet of Things — or the IoT — and its potential impact on security, it’s an apt analogy. The IoT is a concept so large and amorphous that even experts have trouble defining it, much less being able to say when it will be here in the security space. Opinions vary from the IoT being mostly hype right now, to it is already here and has been for years under the integration umbrella. But there is one thing virtually everyone agrees on: No one can afford to ignore this growing trend in the consumer space.
Frost and Sullivan’s research on smart buildings predicts the sensor market alone will reach nearly $4 billion by 2018, eclipsing both software and controllers combined. (See chart, pg. 56) And a recent study by Juniper Research, “The Internet of Things: Consumer, Industrial & Public Services 2015-2020,” predicted connected devices will reach $38.5 billion in 2020, up from 13.4 billion in 2015: an increase of more than 285 percent!