NETWORK & APPLICATIONS

SUNIL RAVI CHIEF SECURITY ARCHITECT , VERSA NETWORKS

“ Imagine the implications of an attack on the switching infrastructure of a metro subway line , a wireless pacemaker becoming compromised , or a power grid shutting down ,” reports a whitepaper by Fortinet . As the report explains , security professionals must be prepared to define solution requirements thoughtfully to guard against these new threats .

“ Thanks to the work-from-anywhere era , the boundaries between home and work networks have blurred ,” explains Sunil Ravi , Chief Security Architect at Versa Networks . “ Once the malware has breached a home network , it can then move laterally across to the homeowner ’ s work network , inflicting significant damage to the organisation . With IoT devices being the perfect target for malware , vendors must ensure that their products have effective security .”

Connected devices can be vulnerable to breaches As Palo Alto Networks explains , without robust security , any connected IoT device is vulnerable to breach , compromise , and control by a bad actor to ultimately infiltrate , steal user data , and bring down systems .

With large volumes of diverse IoT devices continuing to connect to the network , a dramatic expansion of the attack surface is occurring in parallel . As a result , the entire network security posture is diminished , in terms of the level of integrity and protection offered to the least secure device . In addition to these challenges , 98 % of all IoT device traffic is unencrypted , putting personal and confidential data at severe risk .

Almost half of the respondents to a study by Capgemini identified the inclusion of technologies like IoT as one of the main issues exposing their organisation to breaches . Ineffective delegation of cybersecurity responsibilities also ranks amongst the top vulnerabilities , an issue making it difficult to identify malicious activity in a timely manner .

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