Cybersecurity experts meeting in San Diego on Wednesday warned that growing Internet access by common physical devices brings security challenges along with benefits for society.
“Your air-conditioner now talks on the Internet…and by the way it’s connected into your network even if you don’t know it,” said Christian Byrnes of Gartner Inc., an international technology research firm.
“Every industry is going to be impacted by the Inernet of things. It’s going to be an exciting decade.”
Byrnes spoke at CyberFest2014, a conference sponsored by Securing our eCity Foundation and ESET, an international security software company with U.S. headquarters in San Diego.
Nearly 300 people were in attendance as Mayor Kevin Faulconer and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis opened the conference at Stone Brewing in Liberty Station.
Byrnes said all business operations face cybersecurity risk but it is important to strike a balance. “Locking everything down” isn’t an option, he said.
“Every new generation of computing has brought this issue to the table,” he said.
Don Bailey of Lab Mouse Security in Denver was optimistic about overcoming the security challenges, asserting that security technology is generally improving.
“People who are selling fear are wasting your time. I’m here to talk about the solution,” he said. “Today we have a lot more technology and metrics to identify whether somebody has been hacked.”
He said the leading problem is a failure to prioritize risks. “Things are going to get hacked,” he said, but “we have more security controls than ever before.”
Comments are closed.