The study said that organizations believes blockchain technology would be ideal to solve security concerns in the IoT field
Nearly half of businesses — 53% — cannot detect if any of their internet of things devices suffers a breach, according to a recent study by Dutch company Gemalto.
Gemalto said that this comes despite companies around the world putting an increased focus on IoT security. Companies are currently investing 18% of their IoT budget in security, up from 11% in 2017.
With the number of connected devices set to top 20 million by 2023, businesses must act quickly to ensure their IoT breach detection is as effective as possible, the European firm said.
In a survey of 950 IT and business decision makers globally, Gemalto found that companies are calling on governments to intervene, with 79% asking for more robust guidelines on IoT security and 59% seeking clarification on who is responsible for protecting IoT.
Despite the fact that many governments have already enacted or announced the introduction of regulations specific to IoT security, 95% of surveyed businesses believe there should be uniform regulations in place, a finding that is echoed by consumers — as 95% expect IoT devices to be governed by security regulations.
“Given the increase in the number of IoT-enabled devices, it’s extremely worrying to see that businesses still can’t detect if they have been breached,” said Jason Hart, CTO, data protection at Gemalto. “With no consistent regulation guiding the industry, it’s no surprise the threats – and, in turn, vulnerability of businesses – are increasing. This will only continue unless governments step in now to help industry avoid losing control.”
Gemalto’s study also showed that businesses are calling for governmental intervention because of the challenges they see in securing connected devices and IoT services. This is particularly mentioned for data privacy (38%) and the collection of large amounts of data (34%). Protecting an increasing amount of data is proving an issue, with 59% of those using IoT and spending on IoT security saying that they encrypt all of their data.
Meanwhile, 62% of consumers believe that security in the IoT field needs to improve. When it comes to the biggest areas of concern, 54% reported fearing a lack of privacy because of connected devices, followed closely by unauthorized parties like hackers controlling devices (51%) and lack of control over personal data (50%).
Gemalso said that 23% of respondents believe that blockchain technology would be an ideal solution to use for securing IoT devices, with 91% of organizations considering to adopt this technology in the future.
“Businesses are clearly feeling the pressure of protecting the growing amount of data they collect and store. But while it’s positive they are attempting to address that by investing in more security, such as blockchain, they need direct guidance to ensure they’re not leaving themselves exposed. In order to get this, businesses need to be putting more pressure on the government to act, as it is them that will be hit if they suffer a breach,” Hart said.
