The IT industry is currently full of buzz revolving around the internet of things (IoT). So what is IoT and what is all this hussle about? IoT is an ecosystem of connected physical objects that are accessible through the internet. This “object” could be a person or a device for all we know. The basic idea behind IoT is giving everything an ON-OFF button to connect it to the internet. With incessant access to the internet it is possible to connect people with people, people with things and things with things.
Now, you must be thinking that people can be connected to people using social media. People can connect to things like when they use their phone to turn on their televisions. However, the real question arises when we think about how IoT will connect things to things. Ever entered your home and wished you didn’t have to walk all the way to the switch to turn on the lights in your living room? Well what if when you opened the door to your house, the door sent a message to the lights telling them to turn on? That is the power of IoT. That is what it can do to our lives. The scope is never ending. If IoT were to reach its full extent, we would be living in smart cities.
The center of the innovation unfolding across all geographical, industrial and technological borders is the human being that is making use of all these services and applications enabled by the devices and their unprecedented integration with IoT. IoT has already made its place in our lives and we don’t even know it. That smart watch on your wrist is one of the most common examples of IoT. Once properly applied, this concept of IoT will function as an energy saver and efficiency improver.
While opening numerous doors of opportunities, it brings along with it the risks to safety. Thus arises the need for security. During the process of all this data sharing, privacy compromises are bound to happen and preventing them is a major concern. Concerns range from how hackers can steal our data and use it to threaten our lives or how large corporations can misuse the data we carelessly serve them on a platter.
The increase in number of devices behind a network firewall combined with the carelessness of users not updating their devices frequently enough pose major security threats. Outdated software is obviously much easier to breach. Hence, we can safely conclude that the concept of internet of things is here to stay and will lead to great advancement but we must set foot carefully into this unknown territory.
