With the recent marriage of convenience between China Telecom and Ericsson in support of China’s “One Belt One Road” strategy and to further advancements in the deployment of Internet of Things solution and services, this editorial addresses the security associated with a global connection launched on an open platform.
Let us recall that according to report Ericsson and China Telecom had signed a memorandum of understanding in 2016, initially covering a period of five years, to jointly build global IoT connectivity and offer one-stop global IoT connectivity service to enterprise customers through Ericsson DCP. The goal of the platform called “China Telecom IoT Open Platform” is to offer enterprise customers reliable connectivity based on service-level agreements and a common, unified overview of devices and access networks. We cannot argue less that Ericsson also capitalises on the rapidly growing IoT market in China to extend their business but with the recent clampdown on networks and monitoring by the government, meaning that the government may become one of intruders to the open platform security. Can Ericsson guarantee that the network will be free from intruders? Or are they planning to run a network free from any form of encryption or subject to the state ideology?
Watch the broadcast by Chris Kocks on IOT Platform security vulnerabilities which I still think need to be adequately addressed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68COabHCCVM
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