The Internet of Things: Safety first?

The supermarket shelves send advertisements to the cell phone, the car starts the heating at home and the refrigerator reports that milk is missing: practical life assistance, but what actually happens with this information? What data is collected, who has access to it, how is it used? The issue of data protection and misuse of the technologies of the Internet of Things is increasingly coming to the attention of the IT industry.

All-round communication thanks to the Internet of Things can simplify and automate many things. But the infrastructure of communication modules, sensors, actuators and data processing instances not only ensures that objects communicate with each other imperceptibly, but also produces and processes a significant amount of data: Geolocation, temperature, air pressure, lighting conditions, presence or absence of people, their identity, changes in the environment and much, much more. We are no longer just talking about Big Data, but Bigger and Mega Data. With this new dimension of data volumes, the question of data organization, data integrity and data protection is also increasingly coming to the fore - for IT companies and users alike.

A good example of the benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT) is the area of Ambient Assisted Living. These are application systems that make everyday life easier for people in need of support. These are useful and helpful as long as personal data does not fall into the wrong hands. This is because such networking and evaluation of various measurement and personal data increasingly also enables users to be profiled. Here in particular, there is a threat of data misuse: Gartner (Predicts 2016: Unexpected Implications Arising From the Internet of Things) expects a black market of five billion euros by 2020 for counterfeit sensors as well as video data used for criminal activities. This, in turn, is creating a new market: IoT security. But so far, only 37% of decision makers are concerned about IT security, according to Forrester Research. This should change! Those who address the issue of security and risk in IoT applications at an early stage and continually put them to the test can profit productively from this technology megatrend in the long term.