Tag: IOT

The maritime industry faces a not-so-distant future when ships will be completely autonomous, using navigation data that they receive to plot their own courses with only minimal input from shoreside control centers. The efficiencies this could bring are massive, but before this happens, cybersecurity issues must be addressed. Not only are many vessels configured in ways that invite cyberattacks, but security practices also need to be improved before the industry can safely navigate its future. An increasingly digitized maritime industry A fleet of 250 autonomous vessels may launch soon. And that would be only the beginning, according to McKinsey and Co....

In one of those strange inversions of reason, The Internet of Things (IoT) arguably began before the Internet itself. In 1980, a thirsty graduate in Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department, David Nichols, eventually grew tired of hiking to the local Coca Cola vending machine only to find it empty or stocked entirely with warm cola. So, Nichols connected the machine to a network and wrote a program that updated his colleagues and him on cola stock levels. The first IoT device was born. Things have moved on somewhat. Today, the world is home to 8 billion connected devices or “things”, with...

In part one of this short series on smart cities and privacy, I looked at the driving forces and factors behind the development of the smart city. Factors such as environmental change, technological advances, and increasing need for sustainability, as cities become the home of over half the population of the planet. I also explored the technologies making the smart city a reality. Technologies behind the ethos of smart water, smart buildings, and smart transport. All of these innovations require data in some form or another, and much of it personal data from ourselves. These data may be directly...

Part One: A Tale of Smart Cities There has been a lot of talk about 5G recently, and there is plenty more to come. The 5th Generation network is set to be the greatest leap in connectivity since the beginning of the Digital Revolution. It will enable a wave of new technologies and services that are currently only the stuff of imagination. From autonomous vehicles to the greater Internet of Things (IoT), 5G will usher in a new era of cyber-physical integration. Nowhere will this impact be more dramatic than in smart cities – urban spaces with digital DNA, built...

My article "Stuxnet: the father of cyber-kinetic weapons" was published on CSO Online. As we approach the 10th anniversary of when Stuxnet was (likely) deployed, it is worthwhile to examine the effect it still has on our world. As the world’s first-ever cyberweapon, it opened Pandora’s box. It was the first true cyber-kinetic weapon – and it changed military history and is changing world history, as well. Its impact on the future cannot be overstated.

In my latest opinion piece on IoT Agenda “Why governments must take the lead on IoT security frameworks” I argue that there needs to be more government involvement when it comes to IoT security. At least until the industry more broadly accepts that IoT security, if done right, can become a competitive advantage and even speed up innovation.

My article "Defeating 21st Century pirates: the maritime industry and cyberattacks" was published on CSO Online. From the article: Digitization in the maritime industry is growing, and cyberattacks are growing along with it. Attackers achieve massive paydays when maritime targets leave vulnerabilities open. If the maritime industry is to enjoy the potential that digitization can bring, it must put cybersecurity in the forefront instead of on the back burner.

Telecom operators sat back as the new over-the-top (OTT) service providers, internet and tech companies slowly ate away at their business, particularly in the B2C space. A combination of institutional laziness and poor execution on promising initiatives gave these new entrants the time to jump in and snatch away customers. At the moment, the future doesn’t look too bright either with a worldwide CAGR put at 0.7 percent through to 2020. For the time being, wooing back B2C customers is a losing battle. While OTTs use telecom operators to deliver their services, these companies can’t muscle out the competition since...

My article "The tangible threat of cyber-kinetic attacks" was published on CSO Online. Connecting physical objects and processes to the cyber world offers us capabilities that exponentially exceed the expectations of science fiction writers and futurists of past generations. But it also introduces disquieting possibilities. Those possibilities reach beyond cyberspace to threaten the physical world in which we live and – potentially – our own physical well-being.

A growing number of today’s entertainment options show protagonists battling cyber-attacks that target the systems at the heart of our critical infrastructure whose failure would cripple modern society. It’s easy to watch such shows and pass off their plots as something that could never happen. The chilling reality is that those plots are often based on real cyber-kinetic threats that either have already happened, are already possible, or are dangerously close to becoming reality. Cyberattacks occur daily around the world. Only when one achieves sufficient scope to grab the attention of the news media – such as the WannaCry ransomware...

My article "Our smart future and the threat of cyber-kinetic attacks" is published on HelpNetSecurity. Like most of my writing, the article focuses on cyber-kinetic threats of industrial control systems and how the rapid adoption of IoT keeps exponentially increasing the threat.

My article "Protecting smart technologies and IoT from cyber-kinetic attacks" is published on IoT Agenda. The article highlights the cyber-kinetic threats of the IoT. From the article intro: "Making physical objects or systems “smart” is all the rage today. Terms like smart houses, smart cars, smart cities, smart grids, smart refrigerators and even smart hairbrushes pop up everywhere. But there’s something not smart in the way this trend is progressing. Securing smart systems is being often overlooked."

Crowdstrike published its annual Cyber Intrusion Services Casebook. Drawn from 100 real-life client engagements, the report looks into ever-evolving attacker tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and reveals emerging trends observed in attack behaviors, including the preferred tactics used by threat actors to gain entry to the targeted environment.

Honeywell released a new study "Putting Industrial Cyber Security at the Top of the CEO Agenda" showing industrial companies are not moving quickly to adopt cyber security measures to protect their data and operations, even as attacks have increased around the globe.

BlackBerry has published its recommended framework to protect cars from cybersecurity threats. According to BlackBerry, the real challenge is securing the supply chain manufacturing these smart vehicles. With so many actors in the supply chain space individually contributing hardware or software, there is a higher risk of one of them accidentally introducing something harmful or not fully securing a part, which could result in the entire vehicle being compromised. The whitepaper lays out seven crucial security recommendations to harden automobile electronics from cyber attacks.