Frost & Sullivan has suggested that the advancement of M2M market development, which is moving towards an Internet of Things (IoT) future, requires improved security to deal with upcoming risks.

Frost & Sullivan latest report revealed that there would be a huge rise in number of machines and objects that communicate with humans and other machines/objects, with all processing real-time data.

Frost & Sullivan ICT senior industry analyst, Yiru Zhong, said that the traditional M2M deployments have security solutions embedded within the network, with the integrity of the underlying communications network being boosted by existing network security solutions.

"M2M value chain participants – integrated chips manufacturers, SIM card vendors, manufacturers of M2M modules and communication-enabled devices as well as connectivity network providers – have always embedded security solutions within their own products," Zhong said.

"One of the common comments from these vendors when asked about enterprise adoption of more secure hardware in the lower levels of an M2M network is that current M2M deployments do not actually require a higher level of security.

"However, in future scenarios, security risks could be magnified or prevalent because of the way M2M applications will be delivered."

In future, several devices and objects would be connected through communications networks, with the future M2M deployments expected to reach deeper into enterprise operations.

"Coupled with the development of IoT, this will mean that enterprise M2M deployments could potentially be connected to other systems to enable a true connected-society," Zhong added.

"The potential application of Big Data in such a setting will demand a well-defined risk analysis policy in terms of data security, trust, and privacy."