Experts Ponder Implications of IoT Vulnerabilities and Risks
The Pew Research Center reports that at a September 2016 meeting of security conference DEF CON, experts revealed 47 vulnerabilities impacting 23 IoT-enabled items from 21 manufacturers. The items included door locks, wheelchairs, and thermostats. Now, experts are asking if such security risks could “prompt people, businesses and government to avoid or withdraw from certain online connectivity options.”
To answer that question, Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center conducted a nonscientific canvas of “technologists, scholars, practitioners, strategic thinkers and other leaders.”
Of the 1,201 respondents, 15 percent said, “significant numbers would disconnect, and 85 percent said that, “most people will move more deeply into connected life.” The themes that arose from their responses were that, “people crave connection and convenience, and a tech-linked world serves both goals well,” and that “unplugging isn’t easy now, and by 2026 it will be even tougher.”
They also noted that risk is “part of life,” and that “most people believe the worst-case scenario would never happen to them.”
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