Security and Patching Challenge the Industrial Internet| CIO

 

Companies making products for the industrial Internet of Things need to prioritize security and management, says a report by the firm National Instruments.
Companies making products for the industrial Internet of Things need to prioritize security and management, says a report by the firm National Instruments.

The magazine CIO has picked up on a report by the firm National Instruments on some of the key challenges facing the industrial Internet of Things. No surprise: security and management are two of them.

National Instruments has an interesting perspective on the topic: it makes equipment that is used by heavy industry (energy, oil and gas, automotive, etc.) to monitor industrial processes. As a result, NI is knee deep in the transformation to “smart” industry powered by autonomous, sensing equipment.

The company anticipates big challenges as more and more industrial systems come online.

From the article:

“As massive networks of systems come online, these systems need to communicate with each other and with the enterprise, often over vast distances…Both the systems and the communications need to be secure, or millions of dollars’ worth of assets are put at risk.”

Beyond that, NI notes that companies developing products for the industrial Internet of Things will need to pay more attention to issues like maintenance and software updates.

[Read more Security Ledger coverage of Internet of Things.]

“Industrial Internet components need to be built with maintenance and updates in mind,” the report reads. “Industrial systems need to be continually modified and maintained to meet changing requirements.”

That latter issue (broadly “patching the IoT”) is an important one – and it is an area that many companies that aren’t accustomed to developing software based products – let alone connected products – will struggle with.

Read more via 5 Key Challenges Facing the Industrial Internet of Things | CIO.

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