Hortonworks, Neustar collaborate to secure IoT, more efforts to follow
Hortonworks said it will collaborate with Neustar on security and identity management tools for the Internet of Things (IoT).
The partnership is likely to be among the many tech vendor alliances focused on securing the Internet of Things. Why? Connected devices are not secure, and cyberattacks can gain scale simply by utilizing them. Last year, Dyn, a managed DNS service, was hit by a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Dyn later discovered that the attacks utilized IoT devices.
Deloitte in its 2017 prediction list on Wednesday noted that DDoS attacks will scale dramatically. Deloitte said that the growing base of insecure IoT devices (cameras, digital video recorders, etc). are easier to exploit by botnets relative to PCs, smartphones, and tablets. According to Deloitte, there will be a terabit per second attack per month and 10 million attacks in 2017.
Also: Weaponised AI, IoT hacking among tech threats says World Economic Forum | Ransomware, DDoS now top threats as hackers look for big paydays
It's clear that the tech industry needs to button down IoT security in a hurry. Hortonworks and Neustar are hoping to leverage the open source community to better secure IoT. Under the pact, Hortonworks' data platform will be used by Neustar to extend its OneID identity management tools to open source.
The integration between the two companies will bring Apache Ranger and Apache Atlas functionality to the device.
By itself, the Hortonworks and Neustar collaboration won't lock down IoT devices, but rest assured that there will be similar deals coming down the pike. At CES 2017, IoT was front and center in most of the product launches. Unfortunately, security was barely mentioned.