Q & A
Emerging Tech, Cybersecurity and Incident Response: Not a Question of If, But When and How Bad – or How Good C ompTIA Chief Technology Evangelist James Stanger travels the world speaking about cybersecurity, today’s IT technologies and emerging tech, so we sat down with him to learn more about the security implications of emerging technology.
my mind, the software used in these devices isn’t bad in and of itself. But, clearly corners have been cut. That leads to buggy software and poor security practices as all of the pieces needed for implementation are put together. IoT requires a pretty sophisticated approach to firmware, storage, sensors and network transmission. Each of these elements has to fit together well. Often times you end up with a software or hardware development cycle that just isn’t thought through. It has flaws that can be easily exploited. That leads to gaps – or what I call interstices. And it’s in these interstices where hackers love to thrive. A lot of devices are getting enlisted as bot- nets. Some of the good guys are saying they don’t want that to happen, and they upgrade the devices themselves so they can’t be overtaken. It’s a bit like the Wild Wild West out there.
emerging into the real world on some level. For example, using AI in software. Soon, our spreadsheets will tell us, “You just created this pivot table. Here are suggestions for what to do next based on what 10,000 other people have done.” That’s what I think of as emerging technology in terms of AI. CompTIA: What are some of the security concerns related to emerging technology? STANGER: As technology finds its way from the visionary to the real world, there’s an inevitable rush to market. As we rush IoT devices to market, just as we rushed operating systems and platforms such as Windows 95, Linux kernel 1.0 and various routing devices to market in the past, the security isn’t thought of because we’re stampeding to get it out in the world. A lot of emerging tech doesn’t have enough security built in. At least in
CompTIA: What is emerging technology? JAMES STANGER: To some people, emerging technology is a really cool idea, a new innovation. It’s something that is cutting edge, and won’t be implemented for a dozen years or so. But to others, emerging technology is all about adoption. It’s the new, disruptive technology that’s being implemented by early adopters. I think there’s a big difference between innovated tech – the stuff found in the lab – and the adopted tech. Is emerging technology visionary, or is it something that’s being adopted in the workplace and being used every day? Some people may call artificial intelligence (AI) like Siri or Alexa emerging technology, but is it really emerging? It’s in the here and now. It has been adopted. Companies are busy using the Internet of Things (IoT) right now. Emerging technology is something that recedes into the future, in a sense. In my mind, emerging technology is
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SPRING 2018 | CompTIAWorld
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