The internet of things (IoT), blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing all present risks to the future of internet security; however, I believe that the internet of things poses the largest security risk by unnecessarily connecting countless additional devices to a global network.
The potential convenience of knowing how much coffee is left in the coffeepot inspired computer technologists at the University of Cambridge to develop the first web cam application which monitored the coffee levels in the breakroom with low-framerate, grayscale video (Kesby, 2012). Thirty years after this first coffee pot monitoring system went online in 1993, we now have a wide variety of internet-enabled devices that serve countless purposes, but which collectively grow the attack surface of its parent networks.
Not only does each different model of IoT device have its own set of vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit, but compromised IoT devices could also be used in a botnet to perform distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks (Abbass et al., 2019).
Security for internet of things devices is still in its infancy, and standards will likely be developed soon which will lower the overall security risk of integrating IoT devices within a network. However, for the present, most IoT devices do not even allow users to reset the default login credentials of the device which represents a near complete lack of security embedded in an internet-enabled device (Evans, 2019).
References
Abbass, W., Bakraouy, Z., Baina, A., Bellafkih, M. (2019). Assessing the Internet of Things Security Risks. Journal of Communications Vol. 14, No. 10. http://www.jocm.us/uploadfile/2019/0909/20190909054049213.pdf
Evans, A. (2019). Managing Cyber Risk. Taylor & Francis. https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9780429614262
Kesby, R. (2012). How the world's first webcam made a coffee pot famous. BBC World Service. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20439301