As connected devices become the norm, an increase in security needs

Silicon Labs CEO Matt Johnson sees the IoT industry tracking upward, he told us at this year’s CES. Johnson, who’s led the wireless connectivity company for two of his six years there, said that return on investment for device developers is looking good—and a lot of that has to do with consumer gadgets.

“Home has always been big in the IoT,” Johnson said. “But now it’s pervasive and almost everything is connected wirelessly.”

Access and danger. As IoT tech becomes easy to access and use, it’s become increasingly accessible. With that level of access has come an increased need for security.

Other companies are taking similar actions and turning to third party security experts for help. Owlet, maker of a “dream sock” that monitors your baby’s health, runs its products through a full gamut of tests for security before they go to market, company CTO Burc Sahinoglu told us on the show floor.

“We work with security providers like Bishop Fox, in the Bay Area; we ask them to do full penetration testing, hardware testing, device testing,” Sahinoglu said.

Owlet also has a portal on its site for vulnerability reporting, something Rapid7 Principal Security Researcher of IoT Deral Heiland believes is a good indicator that the company whose product you’re using is serious about security.

“If a company does not have a method for actually receiving reports around security issues on their product, you want to step away,” Heiland told us.

Public and private. Managing consumer security needs and regulatory frameworks puts a lot of pressure on the private sector, Silicon Labs’s Johnson said. Balancing security and compliance means having IT teams and dedicated SEC ops teams is “the new normal.”

“It’s frustrating, but you just gotta adapt to it because it’s not going to go away,” Johnson said. “It’s just going to continue to get more advanced—and worse.”