A new IoT Cybersecurity Alliance formed by AT&T, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec, and Trustonic promises to help solve one of the most critical elements of the Internet of Things (IoT) — security. The group says its goal is to work on IoT security standards as well as raise awareness about the topic.

There are numerous IoT-related associations working to promote different segments of IoT and streamline the fragmentation that exists in the industry. However, this is the first group to focus solely on security. AT&T, which was an early advocate for IoT, said it has seen a 3,198 percent increase in attackers scanning for vulnerabilities in IoT devices.

Plus, enterprises are concerned about deploying IoT because of potential security problems. In a 2016 security study conducted by AT&T, the operator found that 58 percent of companies said they were not confident in the security of their IoT devices.

It’s no surprise that companies are concerned about security breaches in IoT devices. Last October, an IoT botnet dubbed Mirai was blamed for causing a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that disrupted several major Internet sites including GitHub, Twitter, and Netflix.

Alliance members think the way to solve the security issue is to protect all devices at the endpoint, network, cloud, and application layer and use analytics to study the ecosystem. Eventually, they envision designing products with security built-in and always available.

The main goals of the group are to collaborate on security across vertical industries like connected car, industrial, smart cities, and healthcare; solve IoT security at every layer including the cloud and application layers; make security easy to access; and work on security standards and policies by engaging with policymakers and other groups.