One thing that makes the ioXt Alliance unique and effective is the diversity of its membership. With security experts across the globe that span everything from consumer product manufacturers to wireless carriers to compliance labs and government organizations, the Alliance bands together forward-thinking leaders who want to make the world a safer place.  

We interviewed ioXt Alliance member Brent Brooks, Director of Strategic Marketing for MMB Networks, to learn why he values being part of the Alliance and what gets him most excited about security. Here’s what he told us . . . 

Q:  What is MMB Networks?

A: At our core, we’re an IoT-enablement company. More specifically, we’re a strategic IoT design services company that enables the world’s biggest brands to create amazing customer experiences by helping them build and bring wireless products to market. 

 We work with companies from all over the world to build both commercial and consumer IoT solutions. We can help build the whole product from start to finish, or jump in at any point in the entire product development process. In other words, we design embedded FW and HW solutions, manufacturing systems, plastics, manage supply-chain/logistics, perform RF testing, and even manage certifications. 

Q:  What do you do for MMB?

A: As Director of Strategic Marketing, my day-to-day includes the oversight and execution of the MMB communications plan, providing insight to various internal teams on communications and product marketing strategy, and designing/developing our support tools and materials for our sales and marketing teams. 

Q:  Why are you involved with the ioXt Alliance? 

A:  We’ve developed solutions for customers and had the chance to evaluate many, many iterations and implementations of different IoT technologies over the years. 

Early on, we recognized the need to pay close attention to and even participate in the various technology standards organizations as a way of managing through the innovation (and fragmentation) that occurs in the technology landscape - which is especially important in the world of the IoT. This as we saw it, was a great way to stay up to date with (or even get ahead of) the latest changes and pass that benefit directly on to our customer’s projects. 

I see our participation in the IoXt as providing similar benefits. We’ve always viewed security as both a primary concern for both our customers and our customers’ customers. As we are all well aware in this space, fragmentation in the IoT is a frustrating pain point for OEM product manufacturers, ecosystem providers, and most importantly to end users of the products that they create. With fragmentation comes varying methods of implementing technology standards and security protocols. The ioXt Alliance is working directly to address and resolve this fragmentation and we’d pass that directly on to our customer’s projects, ensuring that their products are ahead of the curve. 

Q:  What’s your favorite talking point around cybersecurity/IoT, and why?

A:  Passwords. I always navigate towards one of the most basic ways to prevent cyberattacks and devices from being compromised: a unique and strong password. Whether that be a device password or a network password, it can make or break a person’s (or company’s) ability to maintain security and privacy.

We can create the most sophisticated and standardized security protocols in the world. And then the world’s leading product manufacturers and design partners like MMB can spend countless hours in development and QA to ensure that each device is secure before, during, and after manufacturing. But we all know that if an end user deploys a singular password to all of their devices and sensitive information, they can bypass most of that hard work  in a heartbeat.

Q:  Is there another security-related topic or challenge you’d like to highlight?

A: I think data privacy is a part of IoT security that will get more attention as time goes on. We’re at a point where we’re about to see an explosion of adoption in the marketplace on the consumer, commercial, and industrial side of things. With increased proliferation of sensor technology and deployment of IoT devices that harvest the data those sensors generate, that data becomes extremely valuable to end users, OEM manufacturers, and ecosystem vendors alike. Ensuring that there is a balance between usefulness and privacy on both sides is going to take a lot of hard work. Not to mention, that value makes it very attractive to hackers and other nefarious groups that would aim to benefit from stealing/intercepting that data. It’s all the more reason to come together and get data privacy right before it becomes a bigger problem. 

Q:  What’s something fun about you that most people don’t know?  

A: In my pre-tech days, I was pulled into a slightly different area of security: As a quasi-bodyguard for none other than Busta Rhymes, The Black Eyed Peas, and Collective Soul. Albeit it was only for singular events, and only because I was in the right place at the right time – but I have some great stories!