IoT security will be top-of-mind for organizations in 2020. According to the Microsoft IoT Signals report, 97% of organizations deploying IoT projects are concerned about security. Many businesses cite IoT security as prohibitive to IoT success and nearly 20% claim that security is their top IoT challenge.
Security by Design
In response to these concerns, expect to see more organizations take a proactive approach to IoT security in 2020. As technology leaders are becoming more aware that IoT security cannot be an afterthought, it will be increasingly addressed beginning with system design. In many cases, development teams are under tight time constraints to get new IoT products into the marketplace to achieve revenue goals and security takes a back seat.
Reduce IoT security liabilities by performing threat modeling during the design phase. This begins with an architecture diagram of the solution that clearly depicts how data flows throughout the application’s different elements. Threat modeling allows you to clearly identify the most likely liabilities, document them, score them, and then determine the steps to mitigate issues accordingly.
IoT Proliferation
As IoT deployments increase in 2020, technology leaders will face new challenges keeping up with the scale of their IoT systems. Applying security patches to thousands of IoT endpoints and encrypting the massive amounts of data created by those endpoints can be daunting.
Since many IoT solutions collect and process personally identifying information (PII), it is important that the data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. Some encryption technologies have been in place for many years, but IoT data encryption is behind the curve and will become a priority in 2020.
We expect to see more enterprises offload encryption functions to the network or cloud provider for greater security, particularly organizations utilizing older devices. Organizations will also migrate to providers that offer virtual private networks (VPNs), where traffic is encrypted through the Internet securely into their backend servers, regardless of device.
Greater Attention to IoT Traffic
In many cases, IoT security is compromised due to a lack of visibility into network traffic. Many organizations don’t know a device has been compromised or if it’s malfunctioning until it’s too late. By then, sensitive data has already been stolen and the brand is at risk of reputational damage.
In 2020, technology leaders will keep a closer eye on network traffic in an effort to immediately detect when a device is compromised. Greater network visibility will provide actionable intelligence needed to protect IoT devices and the data they transmit, enabling organizations to mitigate security risks and reduce overage costs. Device-level network diagnostic and troubleshooting tools are available to help proactively monitor IoT network traffic.
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Staying Secure in 2020
One of the best ways to ensure your IoT systems are secure is by baking security practices right into the design process. Download our eBook, A Guide to Security by Design for the Internet of Things to learn more.
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