Worldwide spending on Internet of Things (IOT) security is growing, with forecasts of reaching US$1.5 billion by the end of 2018, a 28% increase from spending of US$1.2 billion in 2017.
But despite the steady year-over-year growth in worldwide spending, Gartner predicts that through 2020, the biggest inhibitor to growth for IoT security will come from a lack of prioritisation and implementation of security best practices and tools in IoT initiative planning.
Gartner predicts that regulatory compliance will become the prime influencer for IoT security uptake bu cautions that the lack of of prioritisation and implementation will hamper the potential spend on IoT security by 80%.
"In IoT initiatives, organisations often don't have control over the source and nature of the software and hardware being used by smart connected devices," said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner.
{loadposition peter}"We expect to see demand for tools and services aimed at improving discovery and asset management, software and hardware security assessment, and penetration testing. In addition, organisations will look to increase their understanding of the implications of externalising network connectivity.
”These factors will be the main drivers of spending growth for the forecast period with spending on IoT security expected to reach $3.1 million in 2021.”
Contu says that although IoT security is consistently referred to as a primary concern, “most IoT security implementations have been planned, deployed and operated at the business-unit level, in cooperation with some IT departments to ensure the IT portions affected by the devices are sufficiently addressed”.
"However, coordination via common architecture or a consistent security strategy is all but absent, and vendor product and service selection remains largely ad hoc, based upon the device provider's alliances with partners or the core system that the devices are enhancing or replacing."
According to Gartner, while basic security patterns have been revealed in many vertical projects, they have not yet been codified into policy or design templates to allow for consistent reuse. As a result, technical standards for specific IoT security components in the industry are only now just starting to be addressed across established IT security standards bodies, consortium organisations and vendor alliances.
The absence of "security by design" comes from a lack of specific and stringent regulations and Gartner says that, going forward, I expects this trend to change, especially in heavily regulated industries such as healthcare and automotive.
“Industries having to comply with regulations and guidelines aimed at improving critical infrastructure protection (CIP) are being compelled to increase their focus on security as a result of IoT permeating the industrial world,” Gartner notes.