There's no confidence in Internet of Things security

During the IOActive IOAsis event in San Francisco, security professionals were asked on their opinion on the state of security among Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and the results are not encouraging.

According to the IOActive Internet of Things Security Survey, based on this poll, almost half (47 percent) of respondents felt less than 10 percent of IoT devices have appropriate security measures. Almost nine out of ten (85 percent) believe less than half of IoT devices are secure.

What’s even more depressing is that 63 percent of these people also think IoT has better security measures than other devices.

Everyone agrees more needs to be done to improve overall security, but IoT should grab more attention because of the unprecedented rate at which it is being adopted.

Jennifer Steffens, chief executive officer for IOActive says: "According to Gartner, 21 billion connected things will be in use by 2020. It’s important for the companies that develop these products to ensure security is built in; otherwise hackers are provided with opportunities to break into not only the products, but potentially other systems and devices they’re connected to".

Almost three quarters (72 percent) believe having adequate security is the biggest challenge they’re facing right now, followed by uneducated staff and user error (63 percent), and data privacy (59 percent).

"Companies often rush development to get products to market in order to gain competitive edge, and then try to engineer security in after the fact. This ultimately drives up costs and creates more risk than including security at the start of the development lifecycle", Steffens concluded.

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