The technology we build today is impressive, but compared to what technological innovation the future brings, we will be truly amazed. What we build is going to change the world, society, and the way we live.
With new technology, however, comes new challenges. In the pursuit of convenience, there will most likely be a compromise of design, privacy, and security. And that’s the potential downside to advancement. How should we, as technologists, approach innovation then? Carefully and thoughtfully.
Here’s why.
Every Innovation Carries Intended and Unintended Consequences
In the coming decade, the internet will be used as a platform on which solutions that radically change the way we live will be built. Cisco predicts there will be 20 billion connected devices by 2020―that’s over twice as many devices as people on the planet. This is very exciting (especially for technologists like me), but we need to start asking “should we?” as well as “could we?” as these solutions evolve.
Engineers are great at solving problems, but they are not trained or motivated to think about what unintended consequences might arise from their inventions. For example, with the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), internet-connected devices—from cars to medical devices—are at risk of being hacked. Science has evolved and can help here—but it’s not computer science. I believe that the social sciences (psychology, sociology, and criminology) have a bigger role to play in technology innovation in the coming years.
How to Approach Innovation and Security
In the next few years, then, IT will move from having technical relevance to having societal relevance. With that said, innovation cannot just focus on making processes faster or abstracting their complexities and shortcomings. Innovation must go deep. We must question the very way in which we go about protecting our businesses. Too much of what the security industry is doing is making micro-adjustments to things that we already do and claiming “innovation." As an example, a new firewall with a slightly different approach to sandboxing is not meaningful innovation, but correlating the firewall with multiple other control-points is.
As innovators, we need to rip up the old rules and think about the problems at hand with new eyes. The industry must ask themselves, “Is there a completely new approach we take? How does this impact our customer? How can we stay steps ahead of quickly evolving cybercrime?”
In the past, we were able to retrofit technology with security. But as innovation pushes technology forward, we may not be able to retrofit privacy and security into old devices. In the future we have to build security into these devices.
Without serious innovation, cyber criminals will continue to win in what is, basically, an unfair war waged against legitimate business. And many enterprises are currently losing ground in this cyber security battle because cyber criminals are fast, technologically advanced, and have no requirement to play by the rules.
Symantec’s Long History of Innovation
Symantec’s part of all this technological innovation is mitigating risks. We’re engaged with manufacturers of all industries as they develop internet-connected devices. Our innovation focuses on properly leveraging our considerable assets to solve problems that other companies are unable to solve. Integration and correlation help our customers solve their biggest security challenges. The answer to all of our questions around “What should we do next?” lies with our customers.