Moving at the Speed of Business
Twitter: @MeetCyberBob
It’s early morning and I am already on a Eurostar train heading from London to Paris. The train passes countless trees and houses at a steady 200 MPH as the engine pleasantly rocks it side to side, and I think about the technology that moves with me at the speed of business.
Passengers sit on their assigned spot, not thinking much about the outside digital placard, adjusting to the location and type of the car, which guided them to their seat earlier on. Highly illuminated seat numbers change based on the configuration or the destination of the train. It even tells me if there’s an unoccupied seat next to me, if I feel like spreading out. Right now, I’m in Car 12, seat 75, but on the train’s way back it might be a completely different value. The technology behind it lives in real-time. During the trip, I see updates in the seat usage based on recent ticket purchases as we pull into one of the stops on the route.
It’s practical. It’s simple. The airline industry may have some catching up to do.
Can problems arise though? Probably. All these devices are IP connected. Some are wired, some are wireless. Each update has to come from a central business application, fed by customer data. This is IoT in real-life – it’s here to stay and expanding faster than ever.
Of course, some business questions pop into my head:
- How big are the requests from the outside placard to the business application?
- How often do they connect?
- What does a good request look like?
- What port does it communicate through?
- Is each request authenticated and encrypted?
As we enter the Channel Tunnel and things around me get dark, the issue of visibility pops into my mind. What other endpoints can see this communication? How is it validated and who has access to it? How is the software updated to reduce vulnerabilities and secure avenues of ingress?
The Speed of Business is as fast as the customers need it to be, evolving technology to show us more information. That is why the security, network, and endpoint teams need to evolve with it too.
Take the next step and move towards better Device Visibility and Control.
For more of my musings on all things cyber, click here.