Juniper Research predicts that the total number of IoT connections will reach 83 billion by 2024, representing a growth of 130% over the next four years. The industrial sector is expected to account for more than 70% of the connections in that period. Mirroring this growth in devices, new and modified IoT botnet threats are one of the fastest growing categories of threats in the we’ve seen this year.

While the technical root causes are the same, the impact of an IoT botnet attack on consumer versus enterprise and industrial devices is vastly different. An attack on a consumer gadget could be limited to a privacy issue, whereas the effect of a successful breach on a commercial device can have a significant production or safety cost. That’s why it’s more critical than ever for IT and OT security professionals to understand and be prepared to defend against this growing threat.