Security Realities of IoT (Internet of Things)

Are you a security professional or IT professional just resolving the security issues with BYOD (bring-your-own-device)? Watch out, BYOD was a precursor or warm up exercise to the tsunami just hitting your shores now.

The SANS Institute just completed a survey on the security viewpoints on IoT, predominantly with security and IT professionals.

78% of respondents were unsure of the capabilities for basic visibility and management of Things they will need to secure or lack the capability to secure them.

It seems that, like BYOD, IoT is driven with minimal IT consultation. And it happens with security as an afterthought, with 46% who do not have a policy to drive the visibility and management of IoT devices.

The top security controls used today for securing IoT were 68% authentication/authorization, 65% system monitoring, and 49% segmentation. That translates into Cisco Secure Access solutions that offer superior visibility, robust intelligent platform of critical context, and highly effective unified secure access control. More importantly, this will also help the 74% that rely on manual processes for discovery and inventory of connected device (from previous SANS research).

Over half (67%) are using SIEM (security information and event management) to monitor and collect data to secure IoT. Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) integrates with SIEM to bring together a network-wide view of security events supplemented with relevant identity and device context. This provides security analysts the context they need to quickly assess the significance of security events. More details on the ISE and SIEM integration may be found in this new white paper: Cisco ISE Plus SIEM and Threat Defense: Strengthen Security with Context

The research rightfully points out that, of the many categories of Things, the newest category of single-purpose devices typically connected by wireless (and more likely embedded) software will be the most problematic for security. Due to this difficulty, the SANS community (61%) would like the Thing manufacturers to take more responsibility for providing security. While this is a reasonable request, the question is whether they have the expertise to do this when their focus is on the exciting new IoT market opportunities. Weigh in and tell us your outlook on securing this next wave of Things connecting to your network!

The paper on the SANS survey results is in the SANS reading room.