More than 25% cyber attacks will involve the internet of things (IoT) by 2020, according to technology research firm Gartner. And yet, researchers claimed IoT would account for less than 10% of IT security budgets and, as a result, security suppliers would have little incentive to provide usable IoT security features. They also said the decentralised approach to early IoT implementations in organisations would result in too little focus on security. Suppliers will focus too much on spotting vulnerabilities and exploits, rather than segmentation and other long-term means that better protect IoT, according to Gartner. “The effort of securing IoT is expected to focus more and more on the management, analytics and provisioning of devices and their data,” said Gartner research director Ruggero Contu. “IoT business scenarios will require a delivery mechanism that can also grow and keep pace with requirements in monitoring, detection, access control and other security needs,” he added. According to Contu, the future of cloud-based security services is, in part, linked with the future of the IoT. “The IoT’s fundamental strength in scale and presence will not be fully realised without cloud-based security services to deliver an acceptable level of operation for many organisations in a cost-effective manner,” he said. Gartner predicted that by 2020, at least half of all IoT implementations would use some form of cloud-based security service. Although overall spending will initially be moderate, Gartner predicted that IoT security market spending would increase at a faster rate after 2020, as improved skills, organisational change and more scalable service options improved execution. Gartner predicted global spending on IoT security would reach $348m in 2016 – just 23.7% up compared with 2015 – $433.95m in 2017 and $547m in 2018. “The market for IoT security products is currently small, but it is growing as both consumers and businesses start using connected devices in ever greater numbers,” said Contu. “Gartner forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up by 30% from 2015, and will reach 11.4 billion units by 2018. However, considerable variation exists among different industry sectors as a result of different levels of prioritisation and security awareness,” he said.
Technology research firm Gartner has said that there is not enough focus on securing the internet of things (IoT), with an initial spend of $547m globally up to 2015, and warning it will become an increasing target for cyber attacks. Research director Ruggero Contu said that organisations looking to get the most of out IoT would concentrate on “management, analytics and provisioning of devices and their data”. He said cloud-based services offered the most cost-effective solution to security, as it could “grow and keep pace” with other IoT requirements.