Last week, Cisco CEO John Chambers attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A major theme of the week was security and the implications of the Internet of Everything…the topic which John focused on in his contributed article to the WEF blog, Agenda. You can read the full article here.
In the article he stated:
Additionally, last week, Cisco issued our Annual Security Report which includes data about the number of breaches, attacks and how to mitigate these increasing threats. Cisco SVP and Chief Security Officer John Stewart blogged on this report here. A key call to action of the report is for corporate boards to take a more active role and focus on security as they help run their companies. He also talked to BloombergWest’s Cory Johnson. You can view that interview here.
In Davos, John Chambers talked to a few reporters about the implications of more things being connected…overall, of course, the impact will be very positive. As we move from 14B connected devices to 50B by 2020, John argues that each of those end points cannot be trusted to be secure, therefore you need to focus on security from an architectural approach…something, of course, where the network has a distinct advantage.
See John’s interview with USAToday Editor-in-Chief Dave Callaway.
See John’s interview with New York Times reporter David Gelles.
And, see here, for how many devices are connected to the Internet. Right. Now.
The Internet of Things is likely to include a wide variety of small devices that have an embedded OS, such as open-source Linux, that’s optimized for these type of emerging applications. Protection against hacking of edge devices (sensors, etc) and controllers will be a high priority for many use-case scenarios. It will be interesting to see how the ecosystem (hardware and software vendors) adapt to the needs of IoT developers.
Arista has it backwards. There is a strong public interest, long recognized by the ITC, in protecting innovation and excluding the importation and sale of infringing products. That’s why the ITC exists. So we are pleased it looks like the trials will focus on the merits of our claims, without spending resources on Arista’s argument that the public has an interest in letting it infringe Cisco’s patents.
The ioe will connect the unconnected and there will be an automatic demand for securing the data mountain that will be subsequently built. The mantra for the future is Innovation Connection Security.