Strategy Analytics released its Internet of Things (IoT) survey findings and predictions.
According to the survey of over 600 firms worldwide, 70 percent of IT departments spend less than 20 percent of their time securing the corporate network and data assets.
And, only 7 percent of firms’ IT departments devote more than 50 percent of their time to security. Key vertical segments covered in the survey include financial, insurance, real estate, healthcare, manufacturing and retail.
The results showed that 56 percent of respondents acknowledged that their firms experienced or might have had a successful breach in the last 12 months, compared to 39 percent that said their networks did not suffer any security breaches.
“The survey results are a huge wake-up call. IoT environments exponentially increase the size of the attack vector since companies have so many more devices, end points and applications to secure,” said Laura DiDio, SA Director of IoT Systems Research and Consulting and author of the Report, adding that IoT deployments can potentially be very risky business.
The survey results also revealed that 44 percent of corporations that got hacked were unable to determine, the source or the type of security attack or the duration of the breach, which is alarming.
Strategy Analytics IoT predictions report showed that IoT will be the defining trend of the next decade.
The research agency noted that IoT will impact virtually every vertical industry and permeate the vast majority of business processes.
Services, security, Big Data Analytics and connectivity, particularly Low Power telecoms, will all play prominent roles as IoT mainstream deployments and usage increases over the next 12 months.
Merger and acquisition activity, followed by inevitable consolidation will continue brisk throughout 2016 as large, established vendors strengthen their core capabilities and expand their IoT presence.
“This will be a watershed year for IoT deployments as practical actions take precedence over hype,” noted DiDio. “Embedded security, Data Analytics and services enablement will be essential for organizations to realize IoT’s full benefits and economies of scale,” she added.
The survey also found IoT security will be a crucial issue for vendors, consumers and corporations. Big Data Analytics is the differentiator in IoT.
Strategy Analytics projects that Analytics software revenues will reach $40.4 billion worldwide in 2015 and double to $81.1 billion by 2022, exclusive of service revenues.
Furthermore, Strategy Analytics expects the standardized 3GPP path to Narrow Band IoT via LTE-M with Release 13 to provide real competition to LPWA vendors in the market, offering reduced device costs, reduced power consumption, extended coverage and the ability to handle large numbers of devices.
Merger and acquisition activity will continue to accelerate unabated in 2016. Recent acquisitions of Altair by Sony and Jasper Technologies by Cisco have already topped $1.6 billion and demonstrate that IoT is now table stakes.
Strategy Analytics expects IoT M&A activity could potentially reach the $20 billion mark in 2016.
Arya MM
