Emerging Technologies and National Security: The Impact of IoT in Critical Infrastructures Protection and Defence Sector

Abstract

Today’s society is increasingly dependent on the facilities offered by new technologies. Thus, emerging technologies play a key role in people’s lives, as well as in the functionality and protection of infrastructures that ensure the availability of goods and essential services. Therefore, the exploitation of emerging technologies has become necessary even in the most sensitive sectors of activity, which have significant implications for ensuring national security. Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data, robots, drones, machine learning and many more are feasible solutions for the dynamics and optimization of the environment in which they are integrated. The defence sector has also implemented a number of new technologies, integrating state-of-the-art digital systems into the communications architecture that are necessary for carrying out the military operations in a modern battlefield. Although, emerging technologies have a certain degree of uncertainty, they have already been adopted, and today premises are moving towards further innovation and development of emerging technologies by manufacturers that have an increasing interest to integrate them in the key areas of activity. This article provides an analysis of the impact of Internet of Things technologies on national security, in terms of critical infrastructure protection and the defence sector.