Most people what their data available to them as quickly as possible, no matter what platform they use, or where they store it. That's where 'edge computing' is designed, to service the rapid transfer of massive amounts of data being demanded by information technology, especially the Internet of Things (IOT). It's about supercharging the exchange of data to minimize data transmission latency in order to increase the efficiency of end-devices providing essential functions like artificially intelligent machines.
There are more and more interconnected devices that operate under the IoT, and even more planned to do so. While we might think of some extreme examples like autonomous vehicles, where any loss of connectivity even on a transient basis might have a profound impact on the lives of occupants or surrounding vehicle passengers, there are hardly any sophisticated machines today that don't have some IOT connectivity built into their core.
Within the past few months it was reported that a public utility company was hacked with instructions to change valve settings that caused too much of the toxic substance Sodium Hydroxide, normally used in minimal doses to control water acidity and remove metals from the drinking water, to be injected into the water supply. It just so happened that an alert employee immediately noticed the intruder's attempt to boost the level by more than 100 times the normal value, and reduce the amount back to normal before notifying authorities in Oldsmar, Florida a City of about 15,000. Gone unchecked the result could have been that thousands of citizens of the small city could have been harmed significantly by what they believed to be safe drinking water.
The reality is that the integration of essential operating systems for almost everything we rely on, like public utilities including water, natural gas, electricity, in terms of their generation, distribution and safe administration are based on systems that are now part of the Internet of Things because the operators of these utilities have demanded the ability to control these systems over the internet. Yet they have failed to adequately protect these systems from the cyber risks the internet exposes them to.
More recently we have heard of the Ransomware attacks on companies providing distribution of gasoline and natural gas (like the attack on Colonial Pipeline), city services like fire and police dispatching, hospital services, and numerous other cases impacting the public, including the nation's leading meat producer JBL. While in most of these cases it appears that the 'bad actors' targeted the computers operating the financial control systems of these entities, the impact was still devastating because they could not operate to provide their essential services (or products) without their financial service capabilities. It is just as likely that future 'bad actors' may choose to target the 'operational' aspects of entities rather than their financial computers and software... in those instances the 'edge' is drawing very close to the cliff side., as Wile E. Coyote1 too often found out.
We are already 'living on the edge', but 'edge computing' with it's increased capabilities and higher data transmission will ever increase the risk because it means that safeguards must be that much more demanding than the current systems that are already lacking. Edge computing will therefore lead to an even greater exposure of cyber risks, and the more widespread and economically impactful the exposed system, the greater the risk will be.
So the question will be, can we live 'on the edge' without falling off the cliff?
Disclosure:
1- Wile E. Coyote is a Looney Tunes Cartoon Character created by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese as part of the 'Road Runner' Cartoon series starting in 1949.