Bruce Schneier, CTO at the security firm Resilient Systems, is busy examining how IoT - the name given to the computerization of everything in our lives - is changing the security world.
From sensors that collect data about our environment to databases in the cloud to analytics that help us make use of data, the Internet of Things is capable of changing our physical world.
"We're building an internet that senses, thinks and acts, but doesn't have a body, and that is the textbook definition of a robot," Schneier says. "What I want to propose is that we're building a world-sized robot, and we don't even realize it. While this change has its merits in bringing about enormous changes in social, economic and political environments, this is only going to increase security vulnerabilities," he says.
CISOs are lost when it comes to comprehending that this growing web will create an "interconnected system of threats," he says in an interview with Information Security Media Group during the 2016 RSA Conference Asia Pacific & Japan in Singapore.
"My clear message to security practitioners is: Pay attention to larger innovations that affect the environment, which have a cascading effect on security," he adds (see: IoT: Security Must Be Built In).
In this interview, Schneier discusses:
How CISOs need to tackle growing threats; The importance of policy and regulation; Actionable items for practitioners.Schneier, who is chief technology officer and security technologist at Resilient Systems, an IBM company, is the author of 14 books, including the best-seller Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. He's also written hundreds of articles, essays and academic papers. His newsletter "Crypto-Gram" and his blog "Schneier on Security" are read by more than 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, a fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.