RSA Review: Converged Risk and the Internet of Things

The 2014 RSA Conference this February in San Francisco highlighted the theme of “Threat Intelligence.” Judging from the overflow crowd of 30,000-plus attendees, many are intelligent enough to be very concerned. With business risk at all-time high, managing continuous and converging threats is a challenge. Especially when it appears that our cyber market “messaging” in many regards is overlapping. The fact is that scaling cybersecurity talent is a major problem facing security practitioners, while technology in general is advancing at an accelerated rate and reducing the useful lifecycle of most products. Add to this mix that many physical security solutions are also embracing the IoT (Internet of Things) model to confuse traditional lines of security spending authority. Taken together, we have a very interesting market dynamic at the exact time that the nature of digital risk is converging and evolving. As the saying goes, “May you live in interesting times.”

The “Internet of Everything” is a buzz phrase referring to the tech industry’s evolution to connect all machines and people everywhere on the planet. The IPV4 (Internet Protocol) to IPV6 conversion means tons more IP addresses to drive the productivity and efficiency of man and machine, while simultaneously exploding the total number of potential breach points. The cybersecurity market sector has its hands full with long-term revenue potential, and this was on display with a record number of vendor booths. Mobility, social networking and the cloud continue to drive user behavior, and extend risk well beyond traditional physical boundaries, with your smartphone acting as the lead change agent and breach target.