Internet of Things Security Threats Seen by 55% in IT Survey

Real, potential or undiscovered, security threats posed by rapidly growing machine-to-machine (M2M) connections and the emerging Internet of Things are troubling IT administrators, according to a research report from GFI Software.

Threats to the rapidly increasing number of Internet-enabled addressable mobile devices on their networks in particular are weighing on their minds.

Commissioning Opinion Matters to survey over 200 US IT decision makers working for organizations with as many as 250 people, GFI Software found that besides opportunities, IoT “means growing security threats, greater device management challenges and increased costs for IT management” for small- and medium-sized US businesses (SMBs). Gartner Research forecasts that the number of “things,” i.e. devices connected to the Internet will surge rapidly higher, with 26 billion addressable devices connected to corporate networks by 2020. That, GFI says, “will create billions of new unsecured endpoints that will in turn produce new vectors of attack designed to either compromise the device or gain access to the infrastructure.”

According to its research survey, 96.5 percent of IT decision makers said IoT would have at least some negative impact on their organizations. More than half (55 percent) believe it will result in new security threats and extend existing threats to a greater number of devices. Furthermore, 30 percent expect IoT to increase IT spending. Over one-quarter (26.7 percent) said device management “will spiral out of control” due to the rise of IoT. Fourteen percent said that deploying patches across multiple platforms will pose a particular challenge.