The growing presence of mainstream M2M solutions within critical information infrastructure such as utilities, healthcare, and finance is creating a headache for service providers and critical infrastructure operators who see the benefits of added connectivity and are just waking up to the potential security threats.
This problem will become a critical issue in the coming months due to the ever-growing number of cyber-attacks directed against the banking and energy companies such as HSBC, Saudi Aramco, RasGas, and Telvent
M2M networks are vulnerable to the same threats affecting all telecommunications networks: denial of service attacks, man in the middle hacks, illegal interception, and covert surveillance. More disturbingly, new cyber warfare tactics aimed at causing the failure of critical infrastructure are a very real danger which should not be underestimated.
Michela Menting, senior cyber security analyst, says:
“As M2M continues to play a growing role within critical infrastructure, network security will become incredibly important moving forward. Security needs to be considered not just at the application level, but also at the network level, because it only takes one single weak entry point to compromise the whole infrastructure.”
Those M2M vendors building their core strengths around security will be the big winners in the long run, as the demand for encryption technologies and multi-layered security escalates. ABI Research shows that the global market for M2M network security will be worth $752 million by the end of 2017. This includes revenues for transmission security, physical security, and service level agreements.
