Securing IoT Devices for Business Enterprises

Securing IoT Devices for Business Enterprises

Back in the early 1990s, businesses began looking for ways to integrate the internet into their operations. It ended up changing everything. By the end of the decade, companies like Amazon had risen to dominate retail sales, while competitors had little choice but to play catch-up in the new digital environment.

Today, there’s another advancing technology called the Internet of Things (IoT), which cutting-edge businesses are beginning to adopt. It refers to a new generation of connected devices that will help businesses collect and analyze data in real-time, increase efficiency and productivity, and even cut operational costs.

However, IoT technology introduces a new kind of risk that businesses must consider. The addition of IoT devices to an enterprise network dramatically increases the attack surface IT managers must secure and defend. Because many IoT devices still don’t conform to standard network security best practices, they’re uniquely vulnerable to attack. For proof, look no further than the Mirai botnet that turned millions of IoT devices into an army that disrupted the internet back in 2016.

The good news is there are certain best practices that a business can follow to secure the IoT devices connected to their networks, mitigate IoT security risks, and keep their networks safe from attack. In this article, we’ll cover five of these best practices.

Deploy IoT Device Discovery Technology

IoT security in the enterprise can be very tricky because the typical business IoT footprint includes devices from multiple manufacturers, each with their own OS and security configuration. At the time of this writing, there were at least 613 major IoT platform vendors and innumerable device manufacturers operating in the industry.

Therefore, an important best practice is taking an inventory of the devices operating within the network. In most cases, the best approach to doing this is to deploy IoT device discovery technology in the form of a hardware or software solution. Most of the products designed for this purpose employ a mixture of deep network scanning and device fingerprinting to identify previously unknown IoT devices connected to a given network.

It is also a good idea to conduct a manual security audit to find the physical devices identified in the discovery process, as well as any other hardware that didn’t show up on the automated scans.

Segregate IoT Devices from High-value Network Assets

Another great best practice is creating a dedicated network to service the IoT devices within the larger enterprise network. The idea is to isolate potentially insecure devices to prevent an attacker from using them to gain access to other high-value network assets. This is best accomplished by creating a virtual local area network (VLAN) and a segregated Wi-Fi network to service all enterprise IoT devices.

From there, IT administrators can create firewall rules that allow the IoT VLAN to communicate with the wider enterprise network. Those rules should be narrow in scope and allow only expected and necessary traffic to flow between the network segments. Doing so will also create a traffic profile that can inform threat discovery processes, which we’ll cover a bit later in this article.

Harden Built-in Device Security Options

With all IoT devices segregated on their own network, a key best practice is examining each device’s configuration to enable all security features provided. This, of course, should begin with resetting all device passwords and default usernames, if possible. To make password management easy, it’s best to track the new passwords using an encrypted password database.

All new passwords should consist of a random combination of letters, numbers, special characters, and cases. To speed up the process, using a password generator is a good idea. It is also best to generate passwords up to the maximum number of characters and complexity supported by each device.

Additionally, it is essential to enable any other available device security features, such as end-to-end encryption and randomized management ports. This will prevent attackers from exploiting default device settings, making a successful attack on the enterprise network far less likely.

Create a Comprehensive Patch Management Strategy

Because today’s IoT devices aren’t homogenous, it’s difficult to ensure that every device within an enterprise network stays up to date with the latest security patches and firmware updates. Most devices do not have an automatic update feature to do the work, either. Consequently, IT security administrators may need to devise and enact their own IoT patch management strategy.

A great place to start is to use the data from the earlier device inventory to group online IoT devices by vendor and model, then create a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly process to check with applicable vendors for updates, and designate specific off-peak times to complete the needed updates at the end of each period.

It is also a good idea to create recovery plans to handle any device patches that go awry. With the number of IoT devices increasing all the time, managing device downtime will soon become a critical enterprise network management function. By having a response plan for patch-related problems, it’s possible to at least minimize any self-inflicted downtime.

Deploy Intrusion Prevention Technology

Last but not least, it is also necessary to deploy an intrusion prevention system that includes virtual patching functionality. This will help to mitigate attacks that exploit unpatched vulnerabilities by blocking them at the firewall level. It’s an essential component of a comprehensive defense of enterprise IoT assets.

Virtual patching relies on centralized databases that can enact threat-specific firewall rules as necessary. In that way, IoT devices with known unpatched vulnerabilities will have a measure of protection until there is a software patch available. Right now, virtual patching represents the most dynamic way to protect IoT devices, as network wide IoT device management is still in its infancy.

If possible, organizations with large IoT footprints should also invest in network traffic analysis (NTA) technology. Modern NTA solutions leverage machine learning technology to look for abnormal network traffic patterns that could indicate an attack is in progress. It is even possible to train those solutions using the traffic profile established earlier during the device segregation process to enhance threat detection accuracy.

Enterprise IoT Security Made Easy

At the end of the day, IoT security best practices continue to evolve as the technology itself does. That means that new IoT security solutions will come along as the underlying systems mature. For that reason, business IT decision-makers need to stay abreast of the latest developments in the IoT field. That is the only way to keep networks secure as more and more IoT devices come online.

The best practices detailed above should go a long way toward securing the IoT devices of today and tomorrow in a business setting. By following them businesses can to take charge of their IoT footprint and manage the inherent risks.

The business IT experts here at Outsource IT stand ready to help. From assisting with technology deployments to managed IT services, we can minimize any organization’s IT burden. Contact an Outsource IT account manager to learn more about business IT security and how we can support your organization’s IT needs.

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