14 DAY TRIAL // ENISA, the European Network and Information Security Agency, has announced its plans for the year of 2016, and their research will focus on the security of airports, the healthcare sector, smart cars, and public smart roads.
At the end of every year, government agencies allocate a lot of their time to putting together budgets and plans for the upcoming year.
As this year is coming to a close, ENISA has published its program for 2016, and it comes as no surprise that the agency is focusing its efforts on the Internet of Things (IoT) sector.
IoT devices have been around for a while, and even if this hasn't been the year when they have first come into the public eye, it’s been the year when everyone has learned about their weaknesses.
Thanks to a series of highly publicized hacking cases that ranged from cars to fridges, and from baby monitors to CCTV cameras, the public is now well aware that, despite the benefits they can bring, these new types of devices also put their users in danger.
ENISA wants to bring more order into the world of IoT devices
Converging on critical infrastructure, ENISA's mission for the upcoming year will focus on three crucial sectors where the hacking of Internet-connected devices can lead to serious consequences, even with a massive loss of lives.
Healthcare, airport safety, and public roads will benefit from ENISA's research during 2016, and the agency hopes that the recommendations it will issue by the end of next year will reach the EU's Parliament floor by 2017 so they can be adopted into continent-wide laws.
Why only these three domains? Mainly because of the proliferation of Internet-connected equipment in hospitals and airports, more and more public-facing healthcare portals that can be easily hacked, new supply chain technologies that will be introduced in European airports, the arrival of more smart cars on European roads, and the ever-evolving concept of smart roads.
You can read the entire ENISA 2016 program here. The report is 54 pages long, but the content we referred to in this article is on page 14.