Sixty per cent of South Africans believe a connected home will be a reality in the next five years, according to a survey by network security firm Fortinet.
The study, entitled “Internet of Things: Connected Home”, surveyed individuals from 11 countries and documents data pertaining to the Internet of Things and how it related to a connected home.
According to the study, South Africa has higher hopes for intelligent homes than most developed countries.
Only one per cent of respondents thought a connected home was “not at all” likely, compared to three per cent in the United Kingdom (UK), six per cent in the United States (US), seven per cent in Australia and eight per cent in France.
However, the vast majority of South African homeowners are worried about data breaches afforded by the new technology.
Thirty-nine per cent of respondents said they are extremely concerned about security issues, while 40 per cent said they were somewhat concerned.
“The Internet of Things promises many benefits to end-users, but also presents grave security and data privacy challenges,” said Perry Hutton, African regional director at Fortinet.
“Crossing these hurdles will require clever application of various security technologies, including remote connection authentication, virtual private networks between end-users and their connected homes, malware and botnet protection, and application security − applied on premises, in the cloud and as an integrated solution by device man.”
The study shows South Africans are far more concerned with data breaches than the majority of developed countries included in the survey.
Over 80 per cent see data privacy as a major issue, 23 percentage points higher than individuals in Australia.
“The battle for the Internet of Things has just begun. According to industry research firm IDC, the IoT market is expected to hit US$7.1 trillion by 2020,” saidHutton.
“The ultimate winners of the IoT connected home will come down to those vendors who can provide a balance of security and privacy vis-à-vis price and functionality.”
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