Getting our teeth into the module

Thinking up creative yet practical graphic designs for 6 awareness posters was particularly tough this month. The information risk, security and related issues with IoT are not easy to express pictorially.

One approach that sort of worked, in the end, was a play on words. Previously I mentioned the 'Insecurity of Things' working title for the next awareness module, a phrase that will appear on the red wax-seal blobs that brand all our posters. Along similar lines, I've come up with poster ideas around the Internet of Nothing, Anything, Something or Everything. Whether those will actually work out in practice is hard to say: mostly it depends on whether our graphics wizards can come up with appropriate images. We rely on their artistry and some appreciation of the topic area. We'll see, literally.

Another issue we're grappling with right now is to identify changes in the IoT risk and security domain since we first covered this awareness topic two years ago. IoT was all new and fresh back then: is it any more mature or secure today? Honestly I'm not sure at this point. The IoT marketing hype seems to have subsided, leaving behind ... nothing particularly distinctive, at least not much in terms of IoT offerings from the highstreet and online retail shops. Perhaps things are moving along in other markets, such as health, building and factory things?

Meanwhile there have been few IoT security incidents of note - mostly denial of service attacks and privacy breaches. Critical infrastructures haven't collapsed, and as far as I know we haven't experienced an epidemic of smart pacemaker hacks or malware-infested Fitbits. A consequence of our professional expertise is that we tend to over-state the risks and overlook the opportunities, which may be one of the deeper security awareness messages to explore for June. Perhaps.

So, here we are on the tenth of the month, mulling over the scope, concepts and messages that will need to be expressed and documented by the end of the month, ready to be communicated by our subscribers to their colleagues during the next month. Although we have a few deliverables in preparation already, there's a mountain of work ahead ... as there is every month ... so this is where our well-rehearsed processes kick in.

Or at least they will do soon. First I have an appointment with a dentist. Perhaps chatting about smart dentistry things will distract me from the engineering project going on in my gob!