Are you ready for a world where everything will be connected to everything? As strange as it may sound, this is exactly where the world is already headed. All of a sudden, everything around us has become smart – smart phones, smart cars, smart TVs, and smart kids getting ready to live in smart homes. Hilarious, you will say.

So the big question is, “are you ready for the Internet of things?”

First, what exactly is the Internet of Things? Simply put, it is believed that everything around us is now being designed and built to be connected to the Internet in one way or the other; from home appliances, to furniture, cars, schools, public places, etc.

Here is a more technical definition, courtesy of techtarget.com: “The Internet of Things is a scenario in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to automatically transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Internet of things has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems and the Internet.”

For Cisco Inc. “The Internet of things links smart objects to the Internet. It can enable an exchange of data never available before, and bring users information in a more secure way. Cisco estimates that the Internet of things will consist of 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020.”

Going by what Cisco predicted, the number of devices will outpace humans by a ratio of about 5:1. This, in itself, presents both opportunities and challenges. Would we get to a point where humans would have to wage war against robots?

As our researchers were analysing email-borne threats. They observed a recent cyber-attack campaign where more than 25 per cent of the malicious emails (over 750,000 messages) came from things that were not conventional laptop or desktop computers, but rather members of the Internet of Things.

This is not exactly a surprise to me because almost every single gadget today comes Internet-ready. Every gadget you can think of, such as cars, refrigerators, gas cookers, wrist watches, televisions, radios, spectacles, security cameras, photocopying machines, etc., are now being connected to the Internet.

This way, you can have remote access and control over them. Each of these will have their own unique IP on the World Wide Web and they can be exploited by any smart kid out there, either for the good of mankind or to wreak havoc.

Are you ready ... for ... “Internet of Things?”