{"id":17335,"date":"2015-09-17T09:45:57","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T09:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businesscloudnews.com\/?p=234991"},"modified":"2015-09-17T09:45:57","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T09:45:57","slug":"how-iot-security-could-change-infrastructure-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/how-iot-security-could-change-infrastructure-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"How IoT Security could change infrastructure forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cybersecurity\"<\/a>On September 22nd<\/sup> and 23rd<\/sup>, the first-ever dedicated IoT Security conference and exhibition<\/a> will take place in Boston.<\/p>\n

While at first glance this may appear to concern a specific and rather specialized area, the relationship of the Internet of Things to the broad issue of human security may well prove much more far-reaching and fundamental.<\/p>\n

After all, the development of the Internet itself was driven by a Cold War desire to create resilient computer networks that could withstand a nuclear attack. This threat inspired a whole new architecture for sharing and protecting information \u2013 one that was intentionally decentralized.<\/p>\n

History suggests that precaution can be a key driver of technological innovation. In changing things to protect them, we often open up unforeseen new opportunities.<\/p>\n

Which is why, if we return to 2015, there is something fascinating in seeing the same decentralized architectures applied to real-world infrastructures in the name of collective safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you apply this kind of Internet-type architecture to core infrastructure — whether it\u2019s water or energy or transportation \u2013\u00a0 these systems start looking a lot more like the Internet,\u201d says John Miri, Chief Administrative Officer at the Lower Colorado River Authority (LRCA) and a speaker at this month\u2019s Boston event<\/a>. \u201cYou start to see water systems, flood data systems and, hopefully, electric grids that are less centralized, more resilient and more difficult to disrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The LCRA is an 80-year-old institution with roots in the Great Depression, entrusted with providing reliable water, flood protection and electricity to Central Texas and beyond. The areas LCRA serves covers a number of the fastest growing cities in the United States, meaning LCRA faces some pretty substantial demands on its infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cProviding the water and power to support growing communities and a growing business and industrial base is no small task,\u201d Miri says. Indeed, LCRA has\u00a0 broken ground on a quarter of a billion dollar new reservoir, the region\u2019s first new water supply in decades.<\/p>\n

Many of these additional demands make\u00a0 safety and security more important than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cLCRA is now the second largest electric transmission utility in Texas. Our high tension transmission lines go across a large portion of the state. Protecting the electric grid is a pretty hot topic,\u201d Miri says.<\/p>\n

These hypothetical threats encompass what Miri calls \u201cbad actors,\u201d\u00a0 but also less hypothetical threats to the infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a flood, we may have to intentionally shut down electric substations. Everyone knows electricity and water don\u2019t mix \u2013 but even having the situational awareness to know that water is approaching a substation is very important to us in keeping the lights on. Using these kinds of smart networks to get a better picture of the threats and dangers to the power grid helps us protect it rather than just saying \u2018build more,\u2019\u201d Miri says.<\/p>\n

Similarly, a vast number of sensors throughout its Hydromet network enable LCRA to better monitor water levels \u2013 and to effectively manage floods.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy adopting a new, more open, shared technology approach, we could expand the infrastructure we have for flood data collection at a 90% lower cost than if we had done it a traditional way. The technology\u00a0 actually opens up our infrastructure to a very wide region that never considered it before. We can offer a level of flood monitoring across a wider region and\u00a0 extend it rural and agricultural communities and other areas that might not have the resources to gain access to this technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Miri says, there are new opportunities to apply this decentralized, Internet-style architecture to other projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when you look forward 10, 15 or 20 years, the whole infrastructure may work differently. It opens up new possibilities and business models that we didn\u2019t have before. For instance, Texas is on the coast. As with any coastal area, we spend time thinking about desalination. Some of the work we\u2019ve been doing on the Internet of Things\u00a0 is making people think, maybe we don\u2019t need a couple of giant desalination plants \u2013 which has been the approach in Australia and Israel \u2013 but a number of smaller plants that are networked together, and share the water more efficiently. In the longer term, IoT may actually change the infrastructure itself, which would be very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

It could be interesting to one day look back at this month\u2019s inaugural IoT Security event<\/a> and see how many of the topics discussed went on to fundamentally evolve and affect their wider respective domains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 22nd and 23rd, the first-ever dedicated IoT Security conference and exhibition will take place in Boston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[893,1909,3423,1297],"tags":[118],"class_list":["post-17335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-of-things","category-iot","category-iot-security","category-opinion","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17336,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17335\/revisions\/17336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}