Internet Of Things (IOT) - Gone bad already and accounted by GDPR enforcement?

Who's making the business case for IOT devices and IOTA blockchain technology, should also take stock of the potential for it to backfire and cause reputation damage and even company collapse in the face of data breach and security infringements. This fear is growing increasingly real as a result of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which was enforced starting 25th of May 2018 and which imposes greater financial sanctions on companies whose systems are compromised.

The IOT that captured public attention has been in the consumer market, such as fridges that can order food, devices that lock and unlock doors, open and close lights or other alike. There have been instances of strangers gaining access to baby monitors over WiFi connectivity and disrupting children's sleep, WiFi enabled dolls recording conversations, smart TVs capable of recording your family movements sold with the function turned ON in the factory settings; shopping home hubs ordering items that people don't need or want, just because they were mentioned during conversations; homes being ransacked while residents are on holiday because hackers studied heating data held on an IOT enabled thermostat; shopping suggestions using the microphone from mobile homes in minutes interval from open discussions with friends.

I think it is the cumulative effect of small data failures that help to raise doubts for IOT applications in more serious settings, such as smart self driving or autonomous cars. As businesses and individuals hand over more and more control to the devices in the name of convenience, more will need to be done than ever before to oversee security around storage of the data gathered from them, as well as patching and ensuring software upgrades.

It will take a lot of effort to bump this industry without having in place the security and safety measures that could get acceptance from the great public. Otherwise, if this is not ensure the road to failure might be paved already. Let's not forget that one incident (which in my opinion already happened with the death of a man after an autonomous car system failure to avoid it) will get back the industry with considerable amount of time. I agree that it is much easier to have everything around automated and allow the humans focus on more social aspects of the life, but that can be accomplished only with the correct assurances in place. Thus, at least myself I will still wait for that and not get too much involved in this space (even if I find it quit interesting).

Facts sourced from: TECH ESSENTIALS, IT Faculty, London UK