As enterprises and consumers continue to realize the advantages of interconnected devices, the Internet of Things is rapidly growing. Companies that have implemented IoT devices are experiencing greater efficiency and lower costs, encouraging greater adoption of the technology.

As users have increased control over their devices, they’ve become more efficient and effective, and as those machines become more streamlined and require less maintenance, organizations will see their costs reduced.

A recent study by BI Intelligence looked into the major factors driving the IoT market and pinpointed how the technology will affect various sectors of the economy in the near future.

Over the next five years, 6.7 billion IoT devices will be shipped, and the enterprise sector currently accounts for 46 percent of those shipments. While it is large now, the report found that the IoT market will continue to grow, becoming the biggest device market in the world.

In fact, by 2019 the IoT market is expected to increase to twice the size of the PC, smartphone, wearables, tablet and connected car markets combined. Over that same period, the IoT will add an estimated $1.7 trillion to the economy as companies invest in hardware, software and management services.

While Popular, IoT Still Presents Threats to Security

While there is no doubt the Internet of Things is growing and rapidly being adopted by a variety of industries, many security experts still worry about its lack of security precautions. The study noted that the IoT devices lack a common set of compliance requirements, creating a major security issue. Since there are very few standards for what an IoT device needs to run, there cannot be overarching protection methods to stop a massive exploit of common flaws.

According to a recent cybersecurity industry survey of more than 1,600 enterprise IT decision-makers, 90 percent of C-level executives believe it has gotten harder to protect their organizations from security threats.

“It’s tough to pick just one threat in general, but this survey points to concerns over a variety of advanced threats having a great impact,” industry expert Tamir Hardof told eWEEK. “The growing frequency and complexity of threats and the new demands of emerging technology like the Internet of Things and biometrics pose the biggest challenge to IT decision makers to keep their organizations secure.”

According to the survey, 88 percent of respondents felt that the demands of emerging technology like the IoT pose the biggest challenge to enterprise security.

Thankfully, organizations interested in implementing IoT devices have options when it comes to defending against the risks associated with the technology.There are trust models currently available that have been shown to also be effective at securing large-scale information environments such as IoT​-connected devices that can be employed to protect against related threats. Enterprises can also secure networks through the use of device certificates, which only allow authorized users, devices or applications to access connected systems.

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