M2M : Machine 2 Machine

M2M systems provide excellent tools for companies to manage their assets. At the same time these first generation M2M systems are vulnerable to attacks. Sufficient care must be taken to ensure that the systems are not compromised.

M2M as most of you know is not a new concept it has been around and quite a lot of our regular systems can be categorized as M2M. Your Car Navigation system is an example of a M2M system. The Navigation unit in your car uses data from a variety of locations to help you chart a course from point A to point B. In addition it can also monitor your average speed, places you have been, emergency assistance, directory services, Pay as you go insurance and many more applications.

Lock down external sources: You follow the directions that the machine gives to get to your destination. Researchers have discovered a way to hack into some of these systems and potentially “own” the messages your car gives you and where it tells you to go. The hack explores known external entry points into your navigation system – The Navigation module relies on GPS satellites to get their location and external data feeds for – Traffics information, Directory data and more. If these channels into your applications are compromised then your entire M2M deployment is compromised.

False Alarms:
A common M2M cost savings mentioned is – monitoring remote assets and allowing you to make a decision whether to roll a truck to get the problem fixed with the asset. Now if the data that is coming out of your monitoring ecosystem is erroneous or is hacked into – the false alarms that arise out of this situation may negate any benefit that the M2M system provides. You would end up responding to false alarms and once the filed personnel loose confidence in the M2M system – Any information that you get out of it is viewed with skepticism.

So should I even bother about M2M for now?

Yes – You need to. Your customers are going to ask for this, Your competition is going to have this – So in order to stay ahead of the game plan out your deployments. Ask the right security questions before rolling out a full fledged system

• How do I determine that my system is secure?
• How do I ensure that the data coming from the remote Asset is not compromised?
• How do I control the remote collection from the data asset?
• How do I deal with outages within the system?
• Perform a full security audit before taking your systems live with customers – you get one shot at getting this right – If customers do not have confidence in the data presented it is hard to win them over the second time.
• Follow the crawl, walk, run approach- Include incremental M2M features as you roll your system out to guarantee success

Link

 Report Linker has released a new Wireless M2M forecast for the north american Market. In one of my previous posts I had mentioend that the home security market would be a big driver for the M2M space in the near future. This report seems to reinforce that notion

“There are about 32 million monitored alarm systems in North America and the population of POS-terminals is estimated to 15 million. Both types of devices are today predominantly connected to fixed line networks. In the case of security alarms, cellular networks can serve a vital role as backup communication links. POS-terminals become more versatile with cellular connectivity and in some cases dedicated fixed lines can be replaced by cellular connections also at fixed locations. ”

http://www.reportlinker.com/p046469/wireless-m2m.html

I finally have all the bits and pieces working together on the new WordPress powered M2M (Machine 2 Machine) Blog.

What is new?

• Better Hosting - The site should load up under 2 seconds
• Better control over categorization of the articles
• A Brand new forum for users to share experiences about their M2M Projects and post Questions that the community can answer

M2M Tutorial European Commission Leonardo da Vinci Community action programme maintains a web site for wireless technologies in the field of M2M (Machine-to-Machine) communication. This site requires registrations and a great set of introductory articles on what is M2M.

http://www.m2m-elearning.com/

By using mobile networks (GSM/GPRS) various devices and machines can be controlled and reported in buildings and industries with wireless M2M systems. Devices like Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), CPU devices and building automation systems as well as data networks will be interfaced together with wireless technologie

M2M Module Supplier - t-Mac provides always on GPRS data collections end points to monitor assets.

t-mac Technologies Ltd in partnership with FAW Electronics Ltd manufactures, markets and distributes the t-mac device, a leading intelligent system for remote, Internet monitor and control of assets including heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R), plant and machinery, fire and security systems, energy management as well as consumables such as water, air, gas and electricity.

The t-mac product collects and uploads information as to asset conditions, status and alerts via GPRS to a central server to which users log-on, via any Internet enabled PC, to view live and historic readings.