Chris Kim, Founder, UNION Labs
“It’s easy to brick a device if you don’t upgrade it correctly.”
Many challenges that designers and engineers face when developing secure Internet of Things (IoT) products come down to cost and complexity. How engineers address those issues directly relates to the business model. “It’s hard to bring a business model into an engineering discussion,” says Chris Kim, founder of UNION Labs, a deep technology venture fund building and backing early-stage technology startups. “But unless you’re specifically selling an enterprise product for which the business and use cases are clear and people are willing to pay for the hardware, cost considerations start flowing back into the engineering teams quickly.”
Development costs constrain the amount of time engineers have to implement security architectures and approaches. That is significant because when it comes to IoT security, there’s a lot to consider and many choices to make. Kim notes that generally, if you are developing a mobile or cloud-based application, approaches to security are better known. “But when you’re looking at embedded platform solutions, fewer standards and commonly accepted design patterns are available,” he says. “That increases the complexity for the engineer.”
This is an excerpt from 7 Experts on IoT Security and Privacy. The eBook was generously sponsored by Cypress and Mouser Electronics.
