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The volume and variety of IoT devices connected to corporate networks is vast .
212 manufacturers , 65 % of which fell into three categories : set-top boxes ( 29 %), smart TVs ( 20 %) and smartwatches ( 15 %).
The home entertainment and automation category had the greatest variety of unique devices but they accounted for the least number of transactions when compared to manufacturing , enterprise and healthcare devices .
Most traffic instead came from devices in manufacturing and retail industries – 59 % of all transactions were from devices in this sector and included 3D printers , geolocation trackers , automotive multimedia systems , data collection terminals like barcode readers and payment terminals .
Enterprise devices were the second most common , accounting for 28 % of transactions , and healthcare devices followed at nearly 8 % of traffic .
ThreatLabz also discovered a number of unexpected devices connecting to the cloud , including smart refrigerators and musical lamps that were still sending traffic through corporate networks .
Who ’ s responsible ?
Deepen Desai , CISO of Zscaler employees , enterprise networks were still buzzing with IoT activity ,” said Deepen Desai , CISO of Zscaler .
“ The volume and variety of IoT devices connected to corporate networks is vast and includes everything from musical lamps to IP cameras . Our team saw 76 % of these devices still communicating on unencrypted plain text channels , meaning that a majority of IoT transactions pose great risk to the business .”
The ThreatLabz team also looked closely at activities specific to IoT malware tracked in the Zscaler cloud . Volume-wise , a total of 18,000 unique hosts and roughly 900 unique payload deliveries were observed in a 15-day timeframe .
Malware families Gafgyt and Mirai were the two most common families encountered by ThreatLabz , accounting for 97 % of the 900 unique payloads .
What devices are most at risk ?
Out of over half a billion IoT device transactions , Zscaler identified 553 different devices from
These two families are known for hijacking devices to create botnets – large networks of private computers that can be controlled as a group to spread malware , overload infrastructure or send spam .
24 INTELLIGENTCIO NORTH AMERICA www . intelligentcio . com