AFCEA IoT Technology Summit 2018: 5 Quotes from IT Leaders that Illuminate the State of IoT

AFCEA Washington, D.C., invited government leaders to Washington D.C. on April 24 to discuss the Internet of Things, one of the most disruptive technologies shaping digital transformation. Here are some notable quotes from the AFCEA DC Internet of Things Technology Summit 2018 on April 24:

1. Ernest Hampson Advocates for Next-Gen Network Access Control

One of the things we recognized early on was that an IoT device on your network has many of the same characteristics as a user on your network. If you think about it, we’ve had thousands of insecure entities on our networks for decades, and those are our users. Our users are responsible for most of the damage done inside the enterprise, whether it’s by error, social engineering or malicious intent. So how do we treat a device like a user? Through a next-generation-type access control where we can use a massively scalable architecture to use each device’s, or each user’s, own attributes to decide whether they get access to a particular device or a particular data source. This works within the framework of your existing organization.

                              — Ernest Hampson, chief scientist for national security solutions at Jacobs 

2. Scott Tousley Says Safety, Security and Privacy Are Linked 

The fact is that in an IoT world, how you operate your whole organization safely versus securely versus privately, those are not disconnected questions. They’re not quite the same, but they are definitely connected. Imagine the power of reshaping your organization around a common consideration of those three highly connected topics and seeing what you can do to drive the quality of your organization up.

                              — Scott Tousley, deputy director of the cybersecurity division in the Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate

3. Kevin Garrison Suggests Prioritizing on IoT Security 

Because [many IoT devices] weren’t designed for security from the beginning, the best we can do now is damage control. Figure out the stuff you really, really need to protect, and how much money you want to spend. On the data side, it’s too late. Facebook is the latest thing … it’s the negative consequences of data mining without ethics being considered. That’s a human behavior problem. People are optimizing the wrong things.

                               — Kevin Garrison, chief of analytics for the Defense Department’s Office of the Special Assistant for Governance and Analytics 

4. Jonathan Mostowski Pushes for Culture Change

What we’ve learned is that if you want to change a culture in any place, but certainly in a big organization, you have to start small. You have to demonstrate success. You have to show them that most of their fears around risk are unfounded.

                              — Jonathan Mostowski, acquisition strategist, U.S. Digital Service  

5. Scott Tousley Notes that Innovation Can Be Surprising 

Bonus Quote: Innovation often surprises us; it’s not always something that comes out of a space where you expect it.                            ​​​                         

                              — Scott Tousley

To find out about what federal IT leaders think about the procurement, security and deployment of IoT, check out FedTech's complete coverage of AFCEA DC's Internet of Things Technology Summit 2018.