Safer connections: reducing the security risks of the internet of things

y. Stuart Nathan reports. 

When EM Forster exhorted his readers to “Only connect!” at the end of his novel Howards End, he couldn’t have imagined how connected we would all become barely a century later. Not only does ubiquitous internet mean that we are plugged into media services constantly, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy technology that is not ‘smart’ in some way. For most of these devices, that smartness derives from connectivity to the Internet and to other devices and systems.

The average UK house already contains around 15 connected devices, some obvious such as phones, laptops, tablets, televisions and smart meters, and some much less so, such as kettles, coffee makers, thermostats and switches. This number will only grow in the coming years.

The workplace, and particularly the manufacturing workplace, is even more connected. The rise of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things is seeing sensors and other monitoring equipment proliferate on almost every piece of equipment. Some of these are hardwired into IT systems that oversee and fine-tune the operation of machinery in the factory, while others – such as tools used on production lines in the automotive and aerospace industries – use wireless technologies to receive instructions to alter their operating parameters and to send data back to the factory IT systems.