editor’s question
BARRY
SHTEIMAN, VP OF
RESEARCH AND
INNOVATION AT
EXABEAM
T
oday, people
associate
cybersecurity with
information theft,
whereas with IoT
the impact is in
the real world.
Connected ‘things' include cars, traffic
lights, MRI scanners, door locks, baby
monitors, security cameras, etc.
When these are compromised we
have much more to lose than our
Disaster ‘hack’
scenarios like
those depicted in
Hollywood movies
aren’t too far
from reality.
30
social security number and financial
information. What people often miss
is that connected ‘things' have been
around for a very long time, especially
in infrastructures like the power grids,
airports and other transportation
systems. Disaster ‘hack' scenarios like
those depicted in Hollywood movies
aren’t too far from reality.
The recent consumerisation of
connected objects has brought new
focus on security and that is probably a
good thing for consumers, enterprises
and national infrastructures. But since
consumerised IoT is relatively new,
there are lots of security scenarios that
people have not figured out yet. For
example, the same security issues that
apply to any application or device also
apply to the IoT.
The realisation that these devices can be
hacked in similar ways to our computers
and phones has started an IoT arms
race; new connected devices create
new opportunities for cyberattack, which
means that right now there is a learning
curve for hackers and, therefore, for IoT
manufacturers and users too.
As more devices become ‘smart' and
Internet-enabled, they are often given
the ability to send, query, or process
information that resides elsewhere, via
network or cloud. To do so, these IoT
devices often use embedded accounts
that are difficult to monitor and may also
have hard-coded passwords.
The combination of smart devices with
credentials to access external systems,
via unmonitored privileged accounts,
means that IoT represents a risky and
unwatched channel for data theft or
larger participation in botnet attacks.
Many IoT devices can be paired with
other devices or will need to connect to
other computers or resources, such as
a smartwatch pairing to a smartphone.
This pairing means that the IoT device
could be seen as a stepping stone into
other devices that could hold sensitive
information such as banking details or
other personal details.
The best way to illuminate this attack
risk is to monitor the behaviour of IoT
devices in much the same way as actual
human users. By understanding what
normal behaviour for these devices
looks like, it’s possible to get an early
indication of when a device has been
highjacked by hackers and is likely
being used to access and steal data.
Profiling the devices in your organisation
means you can answer, in detail, what
devices are on the network, what they
are accessing, what they are supposed
to be doing and, most importantly, what
does this imply for risk? u
Issue 03
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