Bernard Murphy, CTO of Atrenta, talks about the challenges to security that the IoT will bring in our continuing coverage of the IoT panel at DAC…and sees the IoT as a lot like a biological system!!!!

Murphy:  The IoT represents a new level of challenge for security – not just because you have to worry about automotive, medical and so on.  But also, if you believe the numbers, then the number of potential edge nodes in an IoT is on the order of a trillion or more.  That’s two to three orders of magnitude bigger than any existing network you can imagine.  It’s about the number of cells you find in a new born baby.

So a trillion edge nodes looks like a biological system.  Why is that relevant? Because our approach to security today is very atomic….It’s not a system level approach.  You think in terms of system level and you look at analogies with biological systems, then you think in terms of different things.

Of course, you need all the antibodies and antiviruses.  But you also want to think about things like signaling – help I’m under attack.  It’s not the same thing as defending yourself.  You still want to defend.  But you also want to signal to your nearest neighbors or an organization around you that you’re under attack.  It can isolate you or send in defenses.

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