IIOT

A new survey from OTORIO and ServiceNow reveals that 58 percent of organizations identify their operational technology (OT) cybersecurity risk level as high or critical.

However, the survey of 200 IT and OT leaders shows only 47 percent of companies surveyed have an OT cybersecurity solution in place, and 81 percent of respondents still manage their OT risks manually rather than having an automated solution.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has seen incredible growth in a relatively short period. Despite being fairly new, smart devices are everywhere in commercial and consumer circles, and they show no signs of stopping.

While the IoT’s growth may remain unchanged in 2022, it will shift and evolve. Here are six trends that will shape the IoT this year.

The Colonial Pipeline attack in 2021 highlighted how vulnerable industrial control systems, and in particular energy supplies, can be to cyberattacks.

The oil and gas sector is particularly at risk as it often relies on older devices that don't receive timely firmware updates. We spoke to Mark Kerzner, CEO and co-founder of ElephantScale and Scaia AI who has worked with many oil industry leaders, to find out more about the risks and how they can be addressed.

How big is the Internet of Things (IoT) market? According to a Gartner report, by 2020 connected devices across all technologies will reach 20.6B. The early adopters of this technology can be found in agriculture, utilities, and cities, but the applications are seemingly endless and extend into homes and even wearable devices. In a similar manner that the Internet has changed our lives, so too will its extension into many "things" that connect and extract pertinent data to improve our personal and professional existence.

Interjecting smarts into muted devices will require new methods of connectivity.

Manufacturing executives probably don’t think of renowned Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw when planning Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) deployments. Maybe they should.

Shaw’s famous quip about England and America being "two countries divided by a common language," captures the differences between corporate IT and production OT, or Operational Technology, departments. While both IT and OT teams are acutely aware of the cybersecurity challenges for successful IIoT implementations, how each department addresses those threats is based on different priorities and requirements.