Deeply sensing the increasing importance of information security associated with the IoT (Internet of Things) applications, Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has set 2018 as the starting year for establishing and implementing information security industry standards and verification systems for IoT devices and services to help domestic makers boost the safety and competitiveness of their products.
The MOEA issued the first set of information security standards and testing specifications for network cameras on December 25, 2017, and will gradually map out similar standards and regulations for network video recorders (NVR), network attached storage (NAS) equipment, and other IoT devices in cooperation with the Taiwan Association of Information and Communication Standards, and other relates sectors in the coming year.
Economics minister Shen Jong-chin said that while the government is actively proceeding with the 5+2 Industrial Innovation Plan, information security has become the most crucial for developing the nation's digital economy. He continued that as massive IP cam installations are accompanied by easy breach of personal privacy and property losses, a set of fair third-party information security standards and verification system are badly needed to help domestic IP cam makers enhance their product safety to facilitate their exports to the US and the Europe.
Internationalizing standards for NVR, NAS systems
The MOEA also noted that the US and the EU have started to ban imports of ICT products failing to meet their safety and security requirements. To counter, the ministry will move to internationalize performance assessment criteria and regulations for such image monitoring systems as NVR and NAS, and will also integrate various IoT and smart application fields to build cross-domain information security industry ecosystems. The annual global market demand for image surveillance systems is estimated to reach US$40 billion by 2020, according to the ministry.
The ministry also cited tallies as showing that Taiwan's First Bank suffered a heist of some NT$80 million (US$2.67 million) in July 2016, 13 domestic securities houses fell victims to the DDoS (distributed denial-of-service ) attack in January 2017, and over 5,500 Taiwan computer users suffered the Wannacry ransomware attack in May 2017. All these have demonstrated high risks and crises lurking behind the convenient environments of informatization and network popularity.
As IoT devices are increasingly adopted by consumers and enterprises, hackers can easily access the devices by attaching malware to the data to be transmitted through IoT devices to mainframe systems before stealing massive data from the mainframes. Accordingly, IoT-related information security is facing increasingly tough challenges, the ministry indicated.