By: Theresa Hitchens
WASHINGTON: The more we connect different devices together, and the more we trust those devices to make decisions for us, the more targets we give hackers. That means that the rise of the much-hyped Internet of Things (IoT), from self-driving cars to networked baby monitors, and the increasing use of automated decision-making aides, in both the national security establishment and the private sector, are together creating an ever-increasing number of targets for America’s adversaries, warned Susan Gordon, the principal deputy Director of National Intelligence.
“The surge of Internet connected devices and the delegation of more and more decisions to machines offers the potential for rich new targets for our adversaries, and raises the potential consequences when they gain access to our digital systems,” she told a packed room at the annual Defense One Tech Summit today.
Former DNI James Clapper way back in 2016 warned the Intelligence Community that IoT was going to present a huge problem for monitoring and protecting networks against attacks, simply because of the enormous number of devices that will be connected.
These two trends — increasing adversary access to data and the potential for greater consequences from that access — will only accelerate “as additional technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence), autonomous vehicles, and 5G-and-beyond mobile networks begin to come on line,” she said.
Read the full story on Breaking Defense.