Thanks Forrester. I Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Embedded security will soon become a key differentiator for any solution that contains IP-enabled embedded devices.”
That may seem a pretty adventurous prediction considering how commonplace embedded devices have become in automobiles, environmental and industrial control systems, retail point of sale systems, cameras, smartphones, medical devices, utility meters—the list gets longer with each new IP-enabled product announcement.
But in a recent research report, titled Embedded Security for an IP-Enabled World, Forrester Research comes to the same conclusion. Forrester researchers don’t actually use my “key-differentiator” terminology, but otherwise their arguments—and their warnings—are very close to the ones I’ve made myself.
Here are a few nuggets from the above-mentioned paper:

“In this IP-enabled world, secure design, security and privacy will be the new value propositions.”
“Players up and down the value chain need to look and plan ahead. Just because buyers are not asking for embedded security doesn’t mean that they will look the other way when they discover this it is not there.”
 “Embedded security will be the business enabler, whether this is from a payment or automation standpoint, and it will have more widespread support among business decisions-makers responsible for the purchase and implementation of Smart Computing solutions.”

Forrester researchers compare vertical markets to see which industries are hot, warm or cold regarding their interest in and readiness to adopt embedded (continue reading...)