Security in the era of insecurity

The usual thing at this time of year is to make some predictions and tradition in ICT dictates that every year has to be “The Year of Something” — usually prematurely because the marketing hype is invariably ahead of real business life, especially in Ireland in recent years. But we are at the leading edge in being aware of and talking about the latest and greatest technology. The presence of some of the world’s leading tech outfits certainly contributes to that. But it fits also with our proven consumer curiosity (the smart phone penetration figures are a good illustration) and our happy propensity to gossip about anything new in our spheres of interest. Pubs are not just for sports and nostalgia.

So what of 2015? Year of Cloud? Year of Clouds? Year of 4G? Year of Internet of Things? Year of the Phablet? Year of the Wearable? We could keep this up a lot longer but everyone has different ideas and in truth it is all a bit boring at this stage.

New eras
What is really happening this year, as every year, is a number of starts. Usually we wait until they have been going for a while to call them ‘eras’ but let us jump the gun a bit. The Eras that have begun include the Third Platform, the Internet of Things (IoT), probably 3D Printing which will segue into digital manufacturing (and its DM-as-a-Service sibling), Robotics and the well-established ubiquitous wireless including 4G and its successors plus Wi-Fi 802.11 and onwards through versions ac to xy for all ICT applications. Another that is certainly coming is the Smart Sensor, part of the IoT but a distinct field of development in its own right. The potential in healthcare alone is mind-boggling.

 

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We log on to web sites and apps with the blithe enthusiasm of children. Even in the corporate world, there is a lingering notion that being personally security conscious is a bit fussy and definitely not macho. True geeks and nerds know better but are often the very ones who are the most casual

But another one that is not usually seen as progressive technology is actually, to paraphrase Tolkien, the One Thing to Rule Them All: security. We have embarked on an era when every digital byte needs to be secured. But because we are human and careless less than a few per cent of our emails are encrypted, for example. We log on to web sites and apps with the blithe enthusiasm of children. Even in the corporate world, there is a lingering notion that being personally security conscious is a bit fussy and definitely not macho. True geeks and nerds know better but are often the very ones who are the most casual, as if knowing the dangers somehow negatives them.

Third platform
That Third Platform, which for the uninitiated is not a railway term, brings all of the dangers together under one metaphorical roof. Still without a consensus definition, we know that it will encompass the current Big 4 preoccupations of the ICT media commentariat — Cloud, Mobile, Big Data (really meaning Analytics) and Social Media. The Big Shebang might be a better term. But there is even an Open Platform 3.0 initiative, so it looks like we should take it seriously. It also looks like the total convergence of ICT that we have been anticipating to some degree since the turn of the century.

Speaking of bygone days, the first column in this series, some 39 issues ago, featured some comments on the role of the CIO from Kevin Cooney, Xilinx global CIO and now its EMEA managing director as well. He reckoned the ‘I’ could equally stand for Innovation and suggested Integration as a possible third. Which would give us Chief Information, Innovation and Integration Officer. A teeny bit clunky as a title perhaps but definitely back in the frame looking at this Third Platform thingy.

But he also added that he saw “security becoming more and more important as a responsibility” in the CIO job. Today we probably have to call it ‘cybersecurity’ for clarity, although a growing number of experts now see security as a continuum with the cyber bit at the top. So there may actually be some sense in having physical security, like access control, managed from the top down under the CIO. It’s no more counter-intuitive than facilities management running the Wi-Fi.

Leadership
Security is so all-embracing that security leadership has to reach all the way up to the C-suite. That will certainly place at least the digital pieces well within the CIO remit. The cyber challenges today are enormous, the stakes extremely high in financial services, security and military organisations not to mention leading edge industry. So to that extent adding physical security and elements of facilities management makes sense because continued separation from the electronic components would be inefficient — even dangerous.