Where We’re Headed Now: Charting the Path for a Faster, Smarter, and Safer IoT

The main theme of this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona was the ongoing digital transformation toward a "connected society." 5G will be instrumental in the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies such as smart homes, smart cities, industry applications, high-speed media delivery, traffic control, autonomous driving, and big data analytics.

At the event, MWC participants shared their forecasts for IoT adoptions and showcased demos and trials of emerging, innovative use cases.

F5 Offers IoT Insight

F5 experts in security, network functions virtualization (NFV), IoT, and 5G met with customers from around the globe, participated in multi-vendor panel discussions, and held booth demonstrations on enabling the IoT via 5G technology with NFV. F5 experts also explored the features and vulnerabilities of IoT protocol MQTT, as well as F5 security solutions for IoT protocols.

Technology demonstration focus areas included:

• Service providers can use F5 solutions to secure, simplify, automate, and customize application and services delivery. They can also gain insights on subscriber behavior and effective management of network traffic with a wide range of policy enforcement capabilities.
   
• F5 solutions enable service providers to use mobile policies and apply DNS web control filtering on a per-subscriber level. This helps service providers monetize safe-browsing and parental controls as additional packaged security features.
   
• F5 BIG-IP programmability helps service providers deploy new services faster to market, and quickly spin up and spin down network services. Service providers can lower capital expenses by adding application-layer services. They can also lower operational expenses through automation and deployment of predefined or custom services.
   
• F5 IoT Gateway capabilities provide a central point of control and visibility between an organization’s IoT platform and the IoT endpoint. It also protects an organization’s infrastructure with behavioral DDoS attack mitigation and L4–7 application security protection.

IoT Security Concerns

A major topic of interest for attendees was IoT security. Mobile devices are increasingly being used in DDOS attacks, as was the case in the assaults on Netflix and Twitter in 2016.

To prevent DDoS attacks, F5 experts stress that service providers must collaborate with industry regulators and ecosystem partners to build secure and seamless platforms. Secure platforms will provide consistent connectivity and real-time insights to transform customer engagement and support the needs of end users. By analyzing intelligence gained from data collection, service providers can redefine their business models to tailor services for these users.

Platforms must also ensure end-to-end security with tight authentication of devices, authorization, and network-enforced policy for access to communication paths. In addition, the encryption of data for safety and privacy is critical for service providers to deliver an optimal customer experience and increase revenue streams.

Learn More

For more information on topics covered at MWC, please see the links below:

The Internet of Things: Security and Business Impacts on Service Providers – White Paper

Benefits of a Tier-1 US Operator’s NFV Implementation – Blog Post

IoT Message Protocols: The Next Security Challenge for Service Providers? – Blog Post

Hello IoT, Goodbye Security Innocence – Blog Post

Breaking Through the NFV Fog in 2017 – Contributed Article

F5 Networks Reveals New Solutions to Boost Service Provider IoT and 5G-Readiness – Press Release