Gartner: Security And ‘Over Running’ Projects Could Threaten IoT Adoption

Gartner predicts that by 2020, more than half of major new business processes and systems will incorporate some element of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The decreasing cost of “instrumenting” things and connecting them to sensors will facilitte this trend, but experts have warned of some difficulties in the way – mainly security, over-running projects and “people issues.”

Bright Future

“Uses of the IoT that were previously impractical will increasingly become practical,” said W. Roy Schulte, analyst at Gartner. “The IoT is relevant in virtually every industry, although not in every application. There will be no purely IoT applications.

“Rather, there will be many applications that leverage the IoT in some small or large aspect of their work, As a result, business analysts and developers of information-centric processes need to have the expertise and the tools to implement IoT aspects that play a role in their systems.”

But it won’t all be plain sailing. For example, it predicts that through 2018, 75 percent of IoT projects will take up to twice as long as planned.

Indeed, the analyst firm expects three out of four IoT projects to face schedule extensions of up to 100 percent with the consequent cost overruns. And it said that the more ambitious and complicated the project, the greater the schedule overruns.

This will led to project compromises, which in turn will lead to “significant weaknesses in performance, security or integration into existing processes.”

“Product-centred organisations will be the worst affected,” said Alfonso Velosa, research vice president at Gartner. “They will seek to launch smarter, connected products, although this will often be a reactive, tactical approach that seeks to address their competition’s IoT product. However, even for organisations conducting internally centred projects that may focus on cost reductions, there will be people issues.”

Security Concerns

Security concerns of course persist. For example, analysts expect that by 2020, a black market exceeding $5 billion (£3.5bn) will exist to sell fake sensor and video data. This market will both enable criminal activity but will also protect personal privacy.

It said that organisations must take into account the possible privacy and security implications of IoT and all the types of data it can generate. This will add complexity to may firms’ business models.

“The IoT has enormous potential to collect continuous data about our environment,” said Ted Friedman,  analyst at Gartner. “A black market for fake or corrupted sensor and video data will mean that data can be compromised or substituted with inaccurate or deliberately manipulated data. This scenario will spur the growth of privacy products and services, resulting in an extensive public discussion regarding the future of privacy, the means to protect individual privacy, and the role of technology and government in privacy protection.”

And the arrival of IoT will led to even bigger security budgets. Gartner predicted that by 2020, addressing IoT compromises will increase security costs to 20 percent of annual security budgets, from less than 1 per cent in 2015.

Rival analyst firm IDC has previously predicted that predicted that 90 percent of all IT networks will have an IoT-based security breach by the end of this year, although many will be considered “inconveniences” as they target non-crucial parts of the business.

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