The
Internet of Things (IoT)—a network of computing devices embedded in everyday
objects and connected to the Internet—can encompass everything from vending
machines to light posts to entire building automation systems.
And
that interconnection is growing, with the number of such devices forecast to
surge from 13.5 billion units now to 38.5 billion by 2020. It’s already
spreading into schools and across college and university campuses via online
portals, digital textbooks, classroom devices, wearables, and other
connections. Although such adoption of IoT has been slower at educational
institutions than in the consumer market, experts predict that will begin
changing this year.
However,
one major roadblock to that growth remains the security of IoT devices. A sneak peek Verizon released ahead of its 2017 Data Breach Digest report recounts how
one unnamed university was hacked via more than 5,000 connected devices on its
campus.
“With
a massive campus to monitor and manage, everything from light bulbs to vending
machines had been connected to the network for ease of management and improved
efficiencies,” the school’s incident officer at the time says in the report
preview.
To
regain control, the school had to shut down all network access to its IoT
segments. “Short-lived as it was,” the incident commander says, “the impact
from severing all of our IoT devices from the Internet during that brief period
of time was noticeable across the campus.”
The
preview identifies the underlying problem as “many IoT manufacturers are
primarily designing their devices for functionality; proper security testing
often takes a backseat.”
