There has never been a more exciting, confusing, and challenging time to develop embedded products. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a given, but tools ranging from machine learning (ML), persistent storage (PS), and mesh networking are changing how developers look at a problem. Approaches that were impractical a few years ago are becoming readily available. That is not to say that these paths are not fraught with peril for the uneducated. Likewise, adopting the latest hardware and software should not mean ignoring other issues like privacy and security.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that cybersecurity is a different beast than it was 10, or even 5 years ago. While traditional cyber threats such as adware and spam emails are certainly still alive and kicking, the threat surface has grown enormously with the advent of IoT, mobility, BYOD, and the cloud. It's a basic equation- the more interconnected we get, the more devices, the more digital traffic there is, control declines, the more crevices there are for cyber threats to exploit. As an industry analyst who's been in the tech sector for a long time, I've had an up close and personal look at the evolving security. I wanted to spend some time today highlighting the trends I've been noticing, and what areas we as an industry need to be focusing on.