Critical Best Practices for Securing Your IoT Devices and Infrastructure

Devices enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT) have become ubiquitous, touching dozens of aspects of everyday life. Countless organizations across manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and others employ IoT as part of their critical daily operations as well.?Forrester?predicts the world will reach 1 trillion IoT devices by 2025—and “most security teams [will] have zero visibility into them.”

Sadly, security issues are inherent in today’s IoT devices due to a culture of accelerated time to market and a lack of regulations that might otherwise impose useful security measures. Ignoring this gap poses real risks for organizations: “Once a smart device is hacked, the opportunities for a malicious actor to move laterally to enterprise assets or steal employee credentials greatly increases,” Forrester describes.

As bad actors exploit these security gaps and the growth in IoT adoption continues, business and IT leaders can no longer ignore the risks they pose to their critical infrastructure. Fortunately, there are simple and sophisticated measures leaders can adopt to ensure their organizations and infrastructure remain protected. This article explores seven such techniques.

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The Emerging Risk Posed by IoT Vulnerabilities

Although IoT now spans enterprise infrastructure in every corner of the world, 57% of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks,?Forbes?reports, where “IoT emerges as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ for malicious actors as they perpetrate their cyberattacks.” IoT is driving unprecedented efficiencies, insights, and business value affecting global commerce and consumer experiences. But a lack of prioritization of security features at the manufacturing level means countless organizations adopt IoT at their own risk.

These developments are causing real damage to organizations worldwide. Nearly 70% of organizations globally have suffered some form of IoT-based cyberattack, according to?IoT For All.?As attackers build their understanding of IoT vulnerabilities, these threats will become more common and severe.

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7 Modern IoT Security Solutions You Can’t Afford to Overlook

Fortunately, there are both common sense methods and sophisticated solutions business and IT leaders can leverage to protect themselves, even as they enjoy the benefits of robust IoT-driven networks. Here’s a closer look at seven such solutions that are driving security and business value.

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1. Reputable Device Vendors

By rule of thumb, business and IT leaders who work with only reputable device vendors—those whose brands are recognizable for the strong security of their products—are more likely to enjoy innate security features as part of their devices. However, these technologies can be costly and out of reach for many companies. What’s more, organizations that adopt BYOD (“bring your own device”) networks—whereby employees can use their personal devices to access internal IT resources—cannot rely on this strategy alone.

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2. Rigorous Personnel Authentication

Requiring passwords is a familiar approach for all users. However, companies who choose to use passwords should enforce certain measures to increase security when connecting with IoT devices. Requiring monthly or bi-monthly changes and enforcing password complexity are common approaches. Adding a second point of authentication—texting a code to users after they submit their username and passwords, for example—can strengthen this approach even more.

Unfortunately, this approach will not always apply to all IoT devices in a given network. Companies who use automated IoT systems with unmanned devices will only bottleneck core processes when passwords are required. Authentication therefore is most applicable in networks where most IoT devices have users in possession of the devices themselves.

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3. Endpoint Security

Endpoint security is software that applies encryption to approved devices connected to an organization’s network. “Endpoint security suites provide tools to monitor any malicious IoT device traffic and can isolate device-level risk by focusing on app and data security on personally owned devices used on the home network,” as Forrester describes.

In other words, endpoint security gives IT security teams better visibility into IoT-connected systems, and imposes more security requirements among endpoint devices. This method is useful in BYOD environments, where security teams become aware of personal devices and any real-time threats they pose. It is especially useful in networks featuring vast numbers of IoT devices—manufacturing or distribution settings, for example—many of which are automated and require minimal human intervention.

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4. Encrypted Connections

Encryption is nothing new when working with expanded networks, where virtual private networks (VPNs) have become a common method for enterprise companies to securely connect remote employees. But VPN is not the only encryption solution on the market, and traditional VPN infrastructure may not be suitable for modern, complex IoT systems.

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5. Monitoring Systems

Monitoring systems help organizations and partner ecosystems oversee and protect complex networks of IoT devices in a centralized and strategic way. These systems track device status, device health, and the nature of data flow to identify irregularities or unauthorized access. They provide automated features like warnings and alerts that help prevent and mitigate the damage of an attack. Monitoring systems can be purchased but are often costly—business and IT leaders should choose their solution carefully, ensuring its features make the most sense for their IoT environment.

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6. Network Segmentation

Network segmentation is a technique whereby an organization divides its larger network into logical, mostly self-sufficient sub-networks that require only minimal connection and communication with one another. Related clusters of IoT devices and the systems that connect them may constitute one sub-network, for example. In this way, IT leaders can isolate compromised sub-networks of IoT systems so that viruses and other threats don’t impact the organization’s full network.

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7. Personnel Training

There is no substitute for training when it comes to security. Even in highly automated networks, employees are often on the front lines in terms of activating, configuring, positioning, and deactivating networked devices. Employees trained to understand and prevent security threats are less likely to leave devices exposed, put networks at risk (intentionally or unintentionally), or remain unaware of imminent threats they might otherwise be able to identify immediately. Not all employees can be security experts, but they can be the eyes, ears, and assistants to a smaller, more experienced IT security team.

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Foundational Security for Growing IoT Ecosystems

The future promises and tangible results of IoT infrastructure are exciting, but with those growing benefits come additional risks. Strong security postures today mean organizations are better prepared for the complexities and malicious behaviors of the future, which are accelerating at a similar rate.

But business leaders must keep the agility and scalability of their operations in mind. That means ensuring complex security systems don’t inhibit progress, even as they protect. Starting from the point of least complexity—such as training employees and rigorous personal authentication—makes the most sense. Then, add security as needed to eliminate more complex existing and future threat vectors.

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?Partner with Uvation for the Best IoT Security Model

Uvation can help you prepare your network of IoT devices for a more robust and scalable security posture, even as your business grows. Contact one of our IoT security experts today for a free consultation.