As more devices will be connected as the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes the norm, there will be a strong demand for a secure environment. Global tech market advisory firm ABI Research expects that hardware-focused IoT authentication services will reach US$8.4 billion in revenues by 2026.

More than 23 billion devices across all major IoT markets are seen to be connected by 2026. And with that number of connected devices, can cyber-threats be far behind? The responsibility of securing those IoT devices are to be shared by the implementers, vendors, and users.

According to ABI Research, secure device authentication currently stands among the top-tier investment priorities for key IoT markets. These findings are from ABI Research’s Device Authentication in IoT technology analysis report.

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“There are several key technologies revolving around authentication security that currently transform the IoT device value chain. Chief elements among them revolve around IoT identity issuance, provisioning, authentication, encryption key lifecycle management, access management, and attestation,” said Dimitrios Pavlakis, Industry Analyst at ABI Research.

IoT monetization

These are the prime focus of IoT vendors who capitalize on the emerging threat horizon to better position their services and explore new IoT monetization models.

“As it currently stands, the IoT is not a secure place for future deployments and both IoT players and digital security vendors are aware of that,” said Pavlakis. “The good news is that the recent change in thinking has caused a noticeable mentality shift and investment surge for secure authentication technologies across the IoT ecosystem; the bad news is that this also gives rise to many IoT management offerings with questionable levels of security and intelligence.”

IoT authentication services need to consider a plethora of variables, sharing both operational and connectivity as well as security characteristics.

Cybersecurity investments

“Just because cybersecurity investments need to enter deeper into the IoT deployment equation does not mean that operational variables will be left unaccounted,” Pavlakis said. “Bandwidth capacity, connectivity requirements, operational specifications, and device heterogeneity, digital footprint and processing power, edge-cloud dependencies, telemetry, and intelligence are all key factors that need to be addressed to obtain a sustainable growth for the IoT going forward.”

Many IoT security vendors are taking advantage of the recent IoT investment surge to increase their market footprint and deliver security-first authentication and management services for the IoT supported by a multitude of flexible pricing models. Market leaders and innovative companies offering IoT security services operating in different areas of the IoT value chain include Intel, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Entrust Datacard, Rambus, Data I/O, and Globalsign.

This report is part of the company’s Digital Security research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Technology Analysis reports present in-depth analysis of key market trends and factors for a specific technology.