Securing The Future of IoT
The recent cyberattacks from the world have once again brought the issue of network security to the fore. While it often seems like a process of “one step forward, two steps back” when it comes to securing the Internet from predators, the awareness of this issue will help keep everyone on their toes.
Securing your own network from internal and external threats requires more than just an off-the-shelf firewall, said Harald Remmert, senior director of technology at Digi International in a recent interview with Machine Design. “The key to prevent these types of security threats is not just relying on a single layer of security, like a carrier networks security,” Remmert told Machine Design. “Layering security on top of what the carrier offers is crucial to strong network security. Best practices like securing encrypted communications tunnels, limiting open ports, consistent auditing and other security protocols are considered a ‘zero-trust architecture.’ Most of all, I believe in auditing and monitoring as the key method to protect your network.”
Read the full interview with Remmert here.
In Search of Security, Reliability
Even before the recent cyberattacks, network security and reliability have been on the minds of manufacturing and business leaders. A KPMG Outlook Survey in March noted that the reliability of networks was a major concern as business began to untangle itself from the COVID-19 pandemic.
There were two key themes, according to Brian Heckler, national industrial manufacturing sector leader at KPMG U.S. “The first is digital business—digital customer engagement, digital ways of collaborating and working within the workforce, and all the knock-on implications of that,” he said. “The second is reliability—reliability of your workforce to be able to be safe, reliability of your supply chain to be able to deliver what you need when you need it, and the reliability of your systems and processes to be safe for your customer and for your people.”
There were two other key results from the pandemic response in the survey, which Machine Design reported on in March:
- 70% of respondents said that in a matter of months the pandemic accelerated the creation of new digital business models and revenue streams, while another 17% said progress accelerated sharply, putting them years in advance of where they expected to be.
- 63% said that the pandemic accelerated the creation of a seamless digital customer experience in a matter of months, while 28% said that progress sharply accelerated, putting them years in advance of where they expected to be.