Navigating new security challenges

After all, a ship full of holes won’t make it past the harbor. The same can be said for enterprise security. Unmanaged devices can create vulnerabilities in your enterprise IT network -- or holes in your ship. Without a relentless focus on sealing these holes, the structure sinks under the pressure of attacks and breaches.

The proliferation of enterprise IoT devices complicates things even further, creating new holes, or vulnerabilities, for the network. Leaving these holes unaccounted and unmanaged can be an invitation for threats. To confront this new reality, organizations need a plan for how they will manage enterprise IoT security. An initial plan involves carefully cataloging and monitoring the devices in real-time. In addition, selecting the right security partner to guide your organization through the process can help accelerate addressing this growing area of concern for security and risk leaders.

According to a recent forecast from Ericsson, by 2022 the number of IoT devices is projected to grow to approximately 18 billion.¹ Considering this significant increase in devices and the vulnerabilities associated, your organization could be left exposed.

As a result, the enterprise IoT environment now makes up a significant portion of the larger IT ecosystem. Sixty nine percent of surveyed organizations estimate that at least half of all devices on their enterprise network are unmanaged or IoT, and 26% of organizations estimate that unmanaged devices outnumber managed devices on their network three to one.² Combine this with employees who connect their own devices to the network while at work and it’s easy to see why 79% of managers surveyed are extremely concerned with the risks posed by unmanaged and IoT devices.²

This lack of understanding is also reflected in how organizations are allocating budgets towards unmanaged and IoT devices. Of those surveyed, 71% of organizations allocate less than 20% of the security budget toward unmanaged and IoT device security²—a low number given the growth and prevalence of these devices. These budgeting issues combined with concerns around employee skillsets emphasize that many companies have IoT blind spots in their enterprise security, a problem that will only become more apparent as these devices become more common.

Companies also should create policies and roadmaps to manage and contain compromised IoT devices. A comprehensive security policy that provides 24-hour monitoring, fast alerts, and effective triage, gives analysts the best chance to rapidly respond to and contain threats before they can cause damage to the network.

Finally, explore new solutions expressly built to manage enterprise IoT security. Many traditional security solutions were built for conventional use cases and are unable to detect and monitor these hidden devices on your network. You should consider a solution that brings together the latest in IoT security as well as the skills and expertise specifically aimed at solving enterprise IoT security challenges. A strategic partner can provide your organization with the people, processes and technologies needed to fill the gaps in your security organization.

It all starts with visibility. X-Force Threat Management for IoT discovers and catalogues managed, unmanaged, and enterprise IoT devices on and off the network, acquiring vital information about each device, such as the manufacturer, serial number, location and network connections. Then, through AI and machine learning, X-Force Threat Management for IoT scans external threat intelligence feeds, vulnerability databases and an internal knowledgebase of 10 million device profiles to issue a risk score for each device on the network, helping your security team pinpoint and identify possible threats.

X-Force Threat Management for IoT’s accuracy stems from leveraging the world’s largest, crowd-sourced device behavior knowledgebase, which tracks over 110 million devices. It compares real-time device behavior to “known-good” baselines of similar devices in the environment, so if a device acts outside that baseline, X-Force Threat Management for IoT can quickly issue an alert to disconnect or quarantine.

X-Force Threat Management for IoT is an agentless deployment, eliminating the need to install hardware or software. It also passively monitors your network without disruption, improving the overall deployment and ease of use. The solution continuously detects and monitors for device threats. If a threat is detected, the system immediately sends an automated alert to the security team with recommended actions to stop the attack.

X-Force Threat Management for IoT also keeps an eye in the sky, or at least in your airspace. By connecting to your wired network and your wireless LAN controller, the solution can gather data about devices both on and off your network. This includes Bluetooth^TM and other wireless devices which, if left unchecked, can cause over-the-air attacks or connections to unsanctioned networks, called ‘shadow networks.’

Manage these rough waters by partnering with IBM and leveraging the X-Force Threat Management for IoT offering, using the power of its AI-assisted device monitoring and the expertise of its team of threat analysts to set your organization on a course for success.