The Internet of Things is making major headway in consumer product categories — but it turns out it’s bringing its share of headaches along for the ride.
It shouldn’t be particularly surprising that security could be a potential issue around IoT, of course. But recent evaluations point to the incidence being more significant than first thought.
That’s the conclusion of research conducted by management consulting firm Altman Vilandrie & Company. Its findings are based on a survey of ~400 IT decision-makers working at companies that have purchased some form of IoT security solutions.
According to the Vilandrie survey, approximately half of the respondents reported that they have experienced at least one IoT-related security intrusion or breach within the past two years. The companies included in the research range across some 19 industry segments, so the issue of security doesn’t appear to be confined to one or two sectors alone.
What’s more, smaller firms experienced higher relative “pain” caused by a security breach. In the Vilandrie survey, companies with fewer than $5 million in annual revenues reported an average loss of $255,000 associated with IoT security breaches.
While that’s substantially lower in dollar amount to the average loss reported by large companies, the loss for small business as a percentage of total revenues is much greater.
More findings from the Altman Vilandrie research study can be accessed here.
Nones Notes 
What puzzles me is how anyone could be surprised at security breaches or any type of abuse within any type of power structure dedicated to getting something from someone else – an advantage – either against their will or against their unconscious desire.
An objective like that cannot but create a kind of a law of gravity, meaning that without intentional effort against it, the default is DOWN, i.e. to maximize the advantage. The only thing to power such an effort is either ethics or a fear of being caught or simple lack of means to “improve” the advantage-getting.
That said and aware that in business the fox is in most cases in charge of the henhouse – thus greatly lowering both, the ethics bar and the fear of being caught – the transgressions and abuses are not a matter of if, but one of how much and when. Also, considering that between business and white-collar crime often is a mere line of definition, the role of politics as the defining agency becomes ever-more strategic.