How IoT and Edge Computing Contribute to Cyber Security

By CIOReview | Monday, November 26, 2018

Cybersecurity is a subject of concern, mainly because there are numerous use cases for IoT among which most of the devices do not have traditional IT hardware protocols. Many enterprises are still underprepared to fight and respond to cyber threats. Here we will talk about how organizations can protect themselves against these cyber issues.

• Is IoT leading towards risk?

The Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consist of trillion devices. In the coming times, there will be billions of devices which will be empowering homes, power plants, hospitals, labs and more. These devices will collect large data which will be collected, transformed and analyzed and turned into actionable intelligence by servers residing at the edge.

Hence, saying that these IoT devices are inviting threat calls could be misleading. They are generating the data required for organizations, and therefore, required tools and techniques have to be adopted by organizations to fight any threat that arises.

• IoT is securing its frontiers

IoT has done a commendable job in achieving its frontiers. The attacks that are witnessed by the organizations are due to malware, Trojans, and other indirect methods to exploit the enterprise. The common element in all of these attacks is the human element because of the phishing emails these employees open.

These indirect attacks allow hackers to implant malware on devices, routers, servers and other infrastructure that can remain undetected for an extended period, say for days, weeks or even months. These malware gets deeper into the network and digs out all the essential information and brings down the entire organization’s infrastructure and data and user accounts are often held hostage until the payment is made. Kiddies no more conduct the recent cyber crimes; it has become a business and has drawn a lot of attention.

Many a time the lost data is difficult to retrieve and can lead to data manipulation or permanent destruction of data or infrastructure.

• What’s the solution?

It is better for the IT organizations to invest in processes, people and infrastructure to fight against the threats in the data center and the edge.

People and Processes: It is essential to hire a CISO and allowing him to build out his team is equally relevant, and all the employees must be similarly hyper-vigilant to protect the organization against any threat. Therefore, organizations must include cyber training and must communicate with the employees on a regular basis and guide them regarding risks and related emails.

Invest in infrastructure: The new data center infrastructure equipment has advanced security protections built-in that protect better than the old product generations. Therefore, it becomes essential to upgrade to the latest generation of servers, and to take full advantage of new cybersecurity technologies available.