Two recently published surveys about the telecom industry revealed that privacy as it relates to security and the internet of things (IoT) has become a top concern for both businesses and consumers.

Allot Telco's security trends report for 2018’s third quarter found that 50% of consumers polled were concerned about loss of privacy or a cyber-attack. Additionally, 72% of the consumers surveyed stated that they were willing to pay a monthly fee, averaging at $5.26, for an IoT security service, and 16% of those who would buy security services would make that investment in their internet service providers (ISPs).

More than 1,200 consumers across 10 different countries participated in the survey, which found that "to improve the security posture of homes and connected devices, the following must occur: Security at the device level must improve and security must be delivered at the network level."

Similar sentiments were mirrored in the recent 2018 Annual Industry Survey, published by Telecoms.com, which showed that 75% of the 1,500 executives from global telecom industries who participated in the survey said that privacy was the key concern of consumers living in a highly connected smart home, followed by identity theft, fraud and vandalism through hacking into connected devices.

Further, 90% of all respondents thought consumers would be willing to pay for smart-home cybersecurity service. Nearly three-quarters (74%) thought consumers would be happy to pay up to $10 a month.

“Over half of the respondents identified four different types of security solutions – DNS blacklisting/firewalls, IP/domain blacklisting, antivirus solutions, and deep packet inspection. Service providers need security capabilities that are high performance and multilayered. They should adopt targeted measures to secure every potential vulnerability, including the data center, control plane, and applications,” the report said.

According to the report, in view of these concerns industry professionals are planning to actively deliver IoT security services. To that end, 56% of respondents saw IoT as an important driver to expand their service portfolio and 46% saw it as significant channel to deliver new revenues.