Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Internet of Things

Posts relating to the internet of things, IoT and M2M technologies

  • Management struggles with the Internet of Things

    Management struggles with the Internet of Things

    Exactly what benefits does the Internet of Things offer businesses? A survey of Australian businesses by Microsoft claims there are benefits but few companies have deployed the IoT in their operations as managers struggle to understand the technologies.

    In the survey “Cut through: How the Internet of Things is sharpening Australia’s competitive edge” carried out by research company Telsyte, Microsoft found two thirds of businesses that  deployed IoT technologies have achieved an average cost saving of 28 percent while half the businesses have improved efficiencies of around the same amount.

    A poor take up rate

    The devil however is in the details and most notable only a quarter of the 306 companies surveyed admitting to using IoT applications.

    While the sample size is small, and the Australian business community has been relatively slow in adopting the IoT, the survey indicates managers see the value but are struggling to see how they can adopt the technologies in their organisations.

    Although fewer than one in 20 organisations said they could not foresee any business benefit from IoT, an alarmingly high 48 per cent still have no plans to implement the technology.

    This reluctance comes largely from a lack of resources and expertise with the top five reasons for not adopting the IoT being technology challenges, affordability, security concerns, lack of skills and no management support.

    Lack of management support

    Management’s lack of understanding and support for IoT solutions presents a risk for businesses as the next generation of industrial machinery  – from cars to tractors – will have some connectivity built into it. A failure to understand the technologies built into equipment opens a range of operational and security risks for an organisation.

    Another aspect about the implementation of the IoT that comes from this survey is exactly what are we talking about? Microsoft’s emphasis in this report was clearly on the Big Data analytics, something else that might confuse the discussion with management.

    What’s clear from the Microsoft’s survey is companies do realise there are benefits from the IoT but managements are struggling to understand the technologies and how to implement them into their operations. This is an opportunity for the savvy integrator or reseller.

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  • Rampaging Ransomware

    Rampaging Ransomware

    A few years ago Ransomware was a joke, malware would install a screen that would demand a ransom be paid to ‘unlock’ the computer. It was easy to get around and almost trivial to remove.

    Then came Cryptolocker, a nasty piece of malware that would gleefully encrypt a victim’s hard drives, rendering them inaccessible unless a sizeable ransom was paid.

    Ransomware suddenly became serious.

    Cryptolocker eventually was unpicked with a cracking tool released and the ring’s alleged founder, Evgeniy Bogachev, now on the run from US authorities with a three million dollar reward for his arrest.

    A better class of ransomware

    Now the gangs running the ransomware scams are even more sophisticated and well resourced with Andrei Taflan of Romanian security company BitDefender describing how Bitcoin values are often tracking ransomware activity.

    “When we see Bitcoin values surging we watch for increased ransomware activity. Someone is buying Bitcoins to unlock their data,” Taflan told me last week in an underground bar appropriately called The Rabbit Hole.

    Taflan’s colleague Bogdan Botezatu describes how the ransomware problem is getting worse, not better, with Cryptowall patching the weaknesses that led to Bogachev’s downfall.

    One of the fascinating aspects of Cryptowall is that it’s polymorpic – it changes shape to elude traditional signature based anti-virus programs. The malware also creates unique Bitcoin wallets to make tracking transaction harder.

    Paying the ransom

    Many businesses being infected by Cryptowall and having data locked away by an industrial grade encryption program makes it a no brainer to pay the demands. It’s a profitable business.

    Faced this rather impressive piece of work, Botezatu raises a chilling prospect about ransomware in the Internet of Things; how long, he asks, will it take ransomware to target more sensitive devices we use, including cars and medical implants?

    Botezatu’s concern illustrate why security with the Internet of Things is absolutely essential if industry and the public are to have any confidence in connected devices.

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  • Locking down the firmware of the internet of things

    Locking down the firmware of the internet of things

    There’s a fundamental problem with smart devices warns Kim Zetter and Andy Greenberg in Wired magazine.

    In Why Firmware Is So Vulnerable to Hacking, and What Can Be Done About It, Zetter and Green look at the problem with the embedded software that is shipped with every computerised device from Personal Computers to smart sensors.

    The problem with firmware is that it’s difficult to check it’s not been changed, awkward to upgrade and complex to find, the Wired piece mentions how even the batteries in Apple laptops have vulnerable software embedded into their chips.

    As the smart devices become common in our homes, cars and workplaces suppliers will have to do more to secure their software.

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  • Reducing big data risks by collecting less

    Reducing big data risks by collecting less

    “To my knowledge we have had no data breaches,” stated Tim Morris at the Tech Leaders conference in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney on Sunday.

    Morris, the Australian Federal Police force’s Assistant Commissioner for High Tech Crime Operations, was explaining the controversial data retention bill currently before the nation’s Parliament which will require telecommunications companies to keep customers’  connection details – considered to be ‘metadata’ – for two years.

    The bill is fiercely opposed by Australia’s tech community, including this writer, as it’s an expensive   and unnecessary invasion of privacy that will do little to protect the community but expose ordinary citizens to a wide range of risks.

    One of those risks is that of the data stores being hacked, a threat that Morris downplayed with some qualifications.

    As we’re seeing in the Snowden revelations, there are few organisations that are secure against determined criminals and the Australian Federal Police are no exception.

    For all organisations, not just government agencies, the question about data should be ‘do we need this?’

    In a time of ‘Big Data’ where it’s possible to collect and store massive amounts of information, it’s tempting to become a data hoarder which exposes managers to various risks, not the least that of it being stolen my hackers. It may well be that reducing those risks simply means collecting less data.

    Certainly in Australia, the data retention act will only create more headaches and risks while doing little to help public safety agencies to do their job. Just because you can collect data doesn’t mean you should.

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  • The IoT’s shaky security

    The IoT’s shaky security

    Samsung’s spying TV sets attracted headlines that worried many people but until yesterday no-one had looked at exactly what data was being sent by the devices to Samsung.

    Pen Test Partners looked at the data flowing too and from Samsung smart TVs and found that yes, the devices are listening and transmitted data back to their – and other company’s – servers.

    That is pretty well what is expected, the real concern though is the quality of what’s being transmitted with Pen Test describing it as a mishmash of code with not even a gesture towards security, “what we see here is not SSL encrypted data. It’s not even HTTP data, it’s a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet.”

    One of the concerns about the Internet of Things has been the quality and security of the data being transmitted, the Samsung TV shows both are lacking.

    For the IoT to deliver the benefits it promises, connections need to be secure and data reliable. Right now it appears the vendors of consumer products aren’t delivering the basics necessary to make the technologies dependable.

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