White House Advisory Group: Governments Have Five Years To Secure IoT

Governments have been urged to take steps to secure the Internet of Things in a draft report from the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) in the United States.

Created by former president Ronald Reagan, the NSTAC is made up of 30 presidentially-appointed senior executives who represent various elements of the tech industry including Microsoft, Intel, Avaya, Vonage, and Akamai. Their job is to admit President Barack Obama on telecommunications and national security.

Government Action

The NSTAC is voting this month to accept the report and dispatch it to the White House. It will advise the US government to act quickly to address the potential risks associated with IoT, especially considering critical infrastructure such as national power grids and the telecommunications system.

“There is a small – and rapidly closing – window to ensure that IoT is adopted in a way that maximises security and minimises risk,” the draft NSTAC report reportedly states. “If the country fails to do so, it will be coping with the consequences for generations.”

“There are only three years – and certainly no more than five – to influence how IoT is adopted,” the report apparently reads.

The report does highlight the benefits of IoT thanks to its ability to interconnect with multiple devices, but according to Nextgov.com, “the rapid and massive connection of these devices also brings with it risks, including new attack vectors, new vulnerabilities and perhaps most concerning of all, a vastly increased ability to use remote access to cause physical destruction.”

“Connected machinery can run more efficiently and is more reliable because it can self-report potential failure indicators before they occur,” the report says. “For example, connected health devices can reduce the risk of human error, while more advanced, sensor-driven logistics systems can improve the government’s disaster-response efforts.”

But the report also says that the Obama administration and the private sector have to act in an immediate and co-ordinated manner to minimise the security risks posed by the Internet of Things. This includes developing a common IoT definition for governmental use.

Security Worries

Security concerns regarding IoT have been ongoing for a while now. In March Cisco announced a competition that will offer up to $300,000 (£190,000) in prize money to people who come up with the best IoT-related security solutions and approaches.

But things have not been helped by the proliferation of rival IoT standards groups. Indeed, last year, experts warned that the deployment of Internet of Things could be held back by too many competing standards.

The AllSeen Alliance has a number of big name backers, but so does the ‘Open Interconnect Consortium‘ (OIC), which also is pushing IoT standards.

Google meanwhile has its open Nest API, and in July its Nest division formed the Thread Group to create a single set of IoT standards.

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