When developing an IoT device, numerous challenges emerge, particularly regarding IoT security threats. According to Forrester Research’s “The State of IoT Security 2024,” IoT devices are more vulnerable to external attacks compared to other computers or mobile devices.
Facing challenges in securing an IoT ecosystem is not so surprising. lack of standardized security measures for manufacturers and developers leads to inconsistent security practices. Furthermore, IT administrators struggle to keep track of and update devices regularly. These factors cause difficulty in maintaining a consistent secure IoT ecosystem.
Hackers employ intricate techniques to infiltrate networks, systematically scanning for vulnerable devices, exploiting weaknesses, and utilizing non-standard ports to accomplish their objectives. Once unauthorized access is secured, evading detection becomes more feasible.
Advanced tactics, such as deploying fileless malware and exploiting software memory, pose challenges for security measures in identifying and thwarting these stealthy attacks.
This underscores the need to address numerous IoT security threats in IoT deployments, prompting the implementation of strategies to prevent such attacks.
Mastering IoT Security: Tackling Top Risks
1)Maintenance And Update Challenges:
Further security vulnerabilities arise from a failure to properly maintain endpoint devices and update software. The factors that can affect the updating of IoT devices are:
Device vendors may not provide updates, leaving vulnerabilities unaddressed.
Another factor is connectivity limitations, power supply, and computational capacity cause difficulty in updating devices deployed in the field.
2)Expanding Attack Surface: Heightened Threats:
The sheer scale of an organization’s IoT environment poses a big challenge to its security. The actual number of connected devices in the globe is in the billions and continues to grow with massive speed. For instance, a report by IoT Analytics shows an 18% increase in the active users of IoT endpoints from the year 2021 to 2022, reaching 18.3 billion. Furthermore, it is expected that in 2023 there will be an increased growth of 16% with an estimated 16.7 billion active users.
As compared to the global scale, an individual organization has fewer devices to secure, still the number adds up rapidly. The Ponemon Institute, in a report sponsored by Adaptive entitled “Managing Risks and Costs at the Edge”, estimates that organizations manage about 135,000 endpoint devices on average. It is noteworthy that IoT devices are often operated continuously within companies, being online 24/7, yet not every device maintains a constant connection.
3) Poor Asset Management:
Organizations encounter numerous challenges related to IoT device updates. Even when updates are possible, organizations lack awareness about which devices need updating. A report by the Ponemon Institute reveals that nearly 48% of devices per organization, approximately 65,000, are at significant risk. This is due to either being undetected by the IT department or running outdated operating systems. Additionally, 63% of respondents cited a lack of visibility into their endpoint devices as their most significant barrier to establishing a robust security stance.
4) DNS Threats:
Most organizations use IoT devices for the collection of data from older machines that don’t even have recent security standards. Integrating Legacy Devices with IoT can give rise to security risks by exposing the network to older device vulnerabilities. IoT device connections often rely on DNS, a decentralized naming system dating back to the 1980s. DNS is not able to handle the scale of IoT
Deployments that can reach thousands of devices if they are not properly configured. Hackers may exploit DNS vulnerabilities for DNS tunneling and launch DDoS attacks, posing risks such as unauthorized data access or malware introduction.
5) Tampering With Physical Devices:
Another major risk is that hackers may tamper with physical devices to gain unauthorized access. This involves perpetrators physically accessing an IoT device with the intention to steal data, install malware, or exploit inner ports for malicious activities.
Physical tampering poses a direct threat to the security of IoT devices, resulting in data breaches or compromising the device’s functionality.
WRAP UP!
To safeguard the integrity and resilience of the connected ecosystem, it is crucial to address these 5 IoT security threats. Challenges may include complexities in updating devices and a lack of standardized security practices when integrated with IoT devices. Robust security measures are necessary to address the tangible threat of physical tampering. Prioritize these challenges to establish a proactive defense and fortify the overall security posture of IoT deployments.
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