IoT implementations are a sum of many moving parts where data is generated and shared by multiple devices, applications, and people. Deploying and securing the infrastructure required for collecting and transmitting commands and data from these elements is a significant challenge in IoT. The fundamental requirements of effective IoT security include: 1) establishing a secure root of trust and/or trust anchors, 2) extending trust across various domains in an automated, scalable and customer-centric manner, and 3) leveraging data in a privacy-protected manner to drive business outcomes. Creating a trust framework must start with establishing an immutable identity in IoT devices in order to prevent untrusted devices or users from communicating with other devices or components on the network.

IoT is maturing to support autonomous deployments that enable IoT devices to interact with and learn from other IoT endpoints and data sources to implement proactive decision making. Given that IoT will play an important role in supporting business operations, there is a growing appreciation among the IoT ecosystem participants for stringent cybersecurity controls. IoT is currently protected using solutions primarily based on a centralized, client-server architecture. However, IoT industry participants are also increasingly evaluating newer and arguably more efficient approaches – such as blockchain-based distributed implementations that don’t have a single point of failure – for protecting automated IoT operations.

Hardening the security posture of IoT components once the product has been deployed commercially is extremely difficult. Therefore, it is imperative that security is implemented during the device design phase or device manufacturing phase. Security costs are low compared to the potential devastation that could result from a compromising event. However, IoT devices are being manufactured without the required components essential for IoT security—such as a way to generate keys on the device or without a mechanism to configure unique identifiers to devices. Device original equipment manufacturers (OEM) must use components that have the necessary built-in security capabilities to ensure the appropriate levels of device and data authentication and integrity.

This Frost & Sullivan insight describes the key requirements in the Internet of Things (IoT) security market and presents details of how the leading IoT security providers address these needs. Information is provided in the form of profiles, wherein each industry participant included in this profile has been interviewed by Frost & Sullivan. Frost & Sullivan’s independent analyst perspectives have also been provided for each of the profiled companies.