Internet of things is new fairy story Once Upon a Time there was no Internet of Things, and people were sad and miserable...
Actually the 'Internet of Things' is no fairy tale and it has been arguably been around in many forms for a number of years, but this Sleeping Beauty is not all Snow White. In fact, it has the potential to show bigger teeth than Red Riding Hood's grandmother and is going to create Grimm tales for some. But why are people huffing and puffing about it now? OK, enough of the fairy-tale puns!
This phenomenon is becoming a reality thanks to the collision of two ideas – 'Wearable Technology' coupled with the 'Internet of Things'. Wearable technology has been around for hundreds of years – from mechanical pocket watches, through to electronic medical devices such as hearing aids.
But until recently those devices only communicated via a simple user interface. Now they (or more accurately their descendants, such as biometric monitors for either health or fitness/sport) are starting to communicate wirelessly with other devices, and are often using internet technologies to do so.
It's this Internet communication that makes wearable tech such a potential nightmare.
For decades, manufacturers and distributors have had private closed networks that link shop floor data collection systems and machine controllers. However, many of these networks now either use Internet communications protocols or even communicate with each other across the public Internet. Other machines and devices (such as printers) are also communicating across WiFi and Internet connections, and many more software applications use internet connections to data stores and other resources that the user isn't even aware of.
M2M
Other applications of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications across the internet are also on the horizon, such as internet-connected car navigation systems (to interactively avoid traffic congestion), vehicle tracking and environmental control systems, as well as personal devices such as Google Glass (augmented vision). While these all seem as benign as a gingerbread house in the woods, stop and think about what a wicked witch could possibly do with some of these - not to mention what this marvellous medicine might do to the volume of data crossing your corporate network should some of these devices become popular in your workplace?
Opening up access to these devices through the internet means your network is suddenly massively more vulnerable to attack from hackers. This vulnerability may not be immediately apparent (though the impact of such an attack could be catastrophic), but the sheer volume of connected devices provides a wider choice of opportunities for computer hackers to exploit. Devices such as Google Glass also raise a number of privacy issues in certain industries, as well as network management issues associated with continuously streaming data across the network.
It's clear then that mixing wearable devices and corporate M2M data could have your IT department running around like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. What you allow to connect to your corporate network is a decision only you can make, but to ensure a happy ending it is essential that you think carefully about what you wish for.
Lawrence Garvin is Head Geek at SolarWinds
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