Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Internet. Things. Add the “Of” and suddenly these three simple words become a magic meme -- the theme we’ve been hearing all week at CES, the oft-heralded prediction that may have finally arrived in 2013.

While not devoid of hype and hyperbole, the Internet of Things (IoT) does represent a revolution happening right now. Companies of all kinds – not just technology and telecommunications firms – are linking “things” as diverse as smartphones, cars and household appliances to industrial-strength sensors, each other and the internet. The technical result may be mundane features such as intercommunication and autonomous machine-to-machine (M2M) data transfer, but the potential benefits to lifestyles and businesses are huge.

But … with great opportunity comes great responsibility. Along with its conveniences, the IoT will unveil unprecedented security challenges: in data privacy, safety, governance and trust.

It’s scary how few people are preparing for it. Most security and risk professionals are so preoccupied with putting last week’s vulnerability-malware-hacktivist genie back into the bottle, that they’re too distracted to notice their R&D colleagues have conjured up even more unpredictable spirits. Spirits in the form of automated systems that can reach beyond the digital plane to influence and adjust the physical world … all without human interfacing....