
Gigantic growth in digitisation
Security and data protection requirements tightened
In the age of digitisation, people are not the only ones communicating with one another, as networked objects also exchange data. According to Statista, the number of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices worldwide will almost triple from 9.7 billion in 2020 to more than 29 billion IoT devices in 2030.
Alongside automation of production (aka Industry 4.0), key topics in this development are the networking of transport modes with road traffic and information and communication systems in vehicles, the energy market and healthcare.
With the increasing complexity of the systems and components used, their networking and the resulting data volumes, these critical infrastructures offer growing potential for attacks on functionality, security, and privacy.
Number of connected IoT devices worldwide from 2020 to 2030
(Source: Statista 2022)
New threat situation requires rapid action
Especially during the last two pandemic years pandemic, companies suddenly found themselves confronted with a new threat situation. Very often, fast functionality was prioritised over security aspects in software development. The danger here is that digitisation projects born out of necessity neglect information security and thus endanger entire corporate networks.
In addition, there are still many applications in the private or business sector that have no legal obligations to comply with security standards. Another extreme can be observed in the field of critical infrastructures. In some cases, IT systems are facing major hurdles in complying with the high security requirements here.