IoT adoption is increasing at an unprecedented pace. Experts project that the total number of installed IoT-connected devices worldwide will amount to 30.9 billion units by 2025.1 However, increased IoT technology adoption has opened the door for high-level security risks and threats, especially those that are tough to defend against because of flaws in many IoT devices. These characteristics of IoT will help you understand why risks and threats are prevalent:

• The IoT does not depend on human intervention to function.
• Multiple devices through an interconnected network collect, communicate, analyze and act on data.
• A lot of sensitive data gets shared through IoT devices.

Here are some numbers to quantify the dangers caused by unchecked IoT adoption:

• As of December 2020, DDoS attacks for the year approximated 10 million—the most DDoS attacks ever in a single year
• Over 95% of all IoT device traffic is unencrypted
• About 72% of organizations experienced an increase in endpoint and IoT security incidents last year and 56% of organizations anticipate a compromise via an endpoint or IoT-originated attack within the next 12 months.