• by Chase Martin , July 19, 2016

With the Internet of Things comes a flood of data to be analyzed.

Some businesses see the onslaught of Big Data as a potential benefit, while others cite it along with security as an area of concern.

More than half (56%) of businesses say Big Data analytics is the main benefit of utilizing IoT technologies and 56% also say security is the top technical challenge, according to a new report.

The IoT 2016 Deployment Trends and Usage survey by Strategy Analytics comprised a survey of 350 global businesses in 23 different verticals about the drivers and challenges of adopting IoT.

The report found that the majority (70%) of businesses are currently using IoT to some degree and even more (80%) plan to do so within the next year. However, only 25% of companies utilize IoT at scale involving an end-to-end solution.

Security remains a significant issue across the board for smart products in a number of studies.

For example, almost half (47%) of security executives estimate that fewer than 10% of IoT products are designed with enough security, based on a survey of 129 senior security executives conducted by IOActive, a security services company. And a majority (70%) say that fewer than a quarter of IoT products have adequate security designed into them.

Among the biggest challenges facing IoT security, the lack of this security in products tops the list. Here are the challenges seen by security executives:

• 72% -- Security not adequately designed into products
• 63% -- Uneducated users or user error
• 59% -- Data privacy

Educating the public may not be enough to solve the security issues.

A large majority (83%) of the security executives surveyed say that public disclosure of vulnerabilities is not enough and that some form of regulatory action would be more effective in improving product security.

Security is also top of mind for many consumers.

More than half (58%) of consumers are very or highly concerned about potential hacking and data theft against their connected devices, according to another recent survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers by security company BullGuard

More than a third (37%) already experienced a security incident or privacy problem in the past.

In the Strategy Analytics report, top uses for IoT are smart building controls, healthcare diagnostics and security/video surveillance, according to the report.

There also seems to be a disconnect between the perceived value of IoT and how businesses utilize it in practice, according Andrew Brown, executive director of IoT research at Strategy Analytics.

"While Data Analytics emerged as the top reason for an IoT deployment, a significant percentage of companies struggle with how to analyze that data to benefit their business," Brown said in a statement. "The data deluge is problematic.”

Here is the breakdown of challenges associated with IoT data collection and analysis:

• 42% -- Too much data to analyze efficiently
• 28% -- Difficult to capture data reliably
• 27% -- Unsure what questions to ask
• 26% -- Weak analysis capabilities
• 25% -- Difficult to capture useful data
• 18% -- Business processes are too rigid
•   7% -- Data is captured too slowly to be actionable

Almost half (44%) say they don’t analyze IoT data well enough and almost a third (31%) say they don’t even collect the data from IoT.