By Erin Hichman
As a child watching the animated TV show The Jetsons I was convinced they lived the ideal life. The Jetson family had technologies and gadgets used in everyday life that seemed unfathomable as I watched in the 1980s. The family lives in an apartment in the sky, drives an "aerocar" and has a robot maid, Rosie, which can do anything in the household, including chores or offering parental advice. Should you have been so unfortunate to have vacuuming assigned as your chore, all you would do is press a button and a gadget would take it from there. Everything was connected and available at your fingertips.
The Jetsons portrayed what life would be like in 2062, which is still way out in the future. Maybe we don't live in space and fly instead of drive, but we are moving closer to the "Jetsons" lifestyle than we think—a life that's dependent on technology.
Cities and homes are becoming more intelligent, meaning increasingly daily life functions are linked or dependent on technology. To varying degrees cities are embedding "intelligence" into their infrastructure to connect, monitor and streamline the flow of information to make things more efficient for the individual and organization in a given city.
"Intelligent" or "smart" applications in cities are nearly limitless and include free Wi-Fi city-wide, parking spot locators, traffic management and smart grids. In the home one can now activate a home security system, record a TV show, turn on the outdoor lighting and check the temperature of the refrigerator all while on vacation 3,000 miles from home. Truly technology has streamlined life and will continue to do so as new technologies emerge and new uses for existing technologies are developed.
One thing that didn't cross my mind as a child was technology security. How did the Jetson family ensure no one hacked into Rosie the maid to take over her control and use her against the family? Did George ever get malware on his "televiewer"? I think the answer is that I'm over thinking what IT security measures were considered on a cartoon TV show that was developed in the early 1960s. We, however, in the real world, are not so lucky.
Both organizations and individuals require cyber security measures in order to be secure. As technologies advance, cyber security threats are becoming more complex to predict and prevent. Cyber threats range from your every day phisher and malware to "hactivists", ransomware, hackers for hire, insider violations and cyber terrorist groups.
As companies attempt to remain current with their use of technologies through the adoption of cloud, mobility, big data analytics and social media, they are faced with the question of not only which technologies to leverage, but how to leverage them securely. Consulting is growing around cyber security as these threats become real—as hackers and cyber terrorism drives real business risks around productivity, lost revenues and credibility loss among customers. Consulting firms are able to guide their clients through the steps of determining which information is vulnerable to cyber threats and how to best integrate cyber security measures into the business.
In order to reap the rewards of a Jetsons-era intelligent world, our world faces the realities of needing protection from cyber threats to ensure this generation and future generations, whether on earth or in space, are well prepared to safely and securely succeed.
Erin Hichman is a Senior Analyst and IT Consulting Lead for Kennedy Consulting Research and Advisory (KCRA).
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