Big Data and Security Dominate IoT Buzz on Twitter

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Social media is abuzz with discussions about the Internet of Things (IoT) and those conversations frequently involve big data and security.

Analyst firm Argus Insights studied over 2.3 million IoT-related social mentions on Twitter for about three months. What those tweets told them is that the industry is preoccupied about what to do about all the big data generated by IoT platforms and devices.

Big data rises above all other IoT topics on Twitter, followed by wearables, the cloud, smart homes and smart cities. “Since growth in Big Data is a natural byproduct of the IoT (all connected devices collect vast amounts of data), it is understandable that this topic could rise to the top over all other IoT topics,” said Argus in a statement.

twitter, big data

Argus’ study also reveals that data security is a top concern. Not only are businesses worried that the IoT will vastly expand an organization’s attack surface, consumers are wary about Amazon tracking everything Echo owners say and hackers prying their way into their smart home devices.

In February, Gartner warned that rapid IoT adoption may outpace the tech industry’s ability to cope with attackers that set their sights on billions of connected devices. “Experienced IoT security specialists are scarce, and security solutions are currently fragmented and involve multiple vendors, new threats will emerge through 2021 as hackers find new ways to attack IoT devices and protocols, so long-lived ‘things’ may need updatable hardware and software to adapt during their life span,” remarked Gartner vice president Nick Jones in a statement.

The public seems to be getting the message, on Twitter at least.

“Security concerns for consumers are definitely on the rise and this goes double for any enterprise deployments,” noted John Feland, CEO of Argus Insights. “Security issues continue to be a real roadblock for IoT product acceptance.” After security, social media discussions often turned to software, computing and privacy.

Argus’ research analysts also discovered that despite their best efforts, none of today’s technology giants are synonymous with IoT.

“Though there was definitely talk about Google, Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, Cisco and the rest, no single brand is dominating the overall IoT conversation,” Feland said. “Given the multiple, and at times, confusing definitions of the internet of things, seeing this diversity played out over social conversations is a clear indicator that while overall interest in IoT is increasing, no single company has control of the market.”

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.