How to secure the Cloud of Everything

Speaking at CES, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission warned that the Internet of Things posed a serious risk to the privacy of consumers. The speech by Edith Ramirez may have been talking about connected devices and consumers, but the same issues apply to the corporate 'Cloud of Everything.' She spoke of the dangers of ubiquitous data collection, unexpected uses of that data and heightened security risks with devices opening up new routes to attack. There was an implication that low-cost devices with high volume distribution generally equates to less attention paid to matters of security. Security by design is not high on the list of priorities when you are participating in a race to the bottom as far as cost is concerned. Ramirez was urging manufacturers to change this, and to ensure that data encryption and lifecycle product monitoring were firmly on the design agenda. If you think about the potential security risks of the consumer Internet of Things, they can be summed up neatly as 'more devices equal more intrusion entry points.' This is an exact match to what is happening in organisations in terms of cloud services.