As digitisation continues apace, we are witnessing the rise of the ‘connected world’, where everything from IP cameras to company printers and coffee machines are connected to the internet. And the same holds true for industry-specific verticals, which require such solutions as connected medical devices or connected industrial or manufacturing robots.
The challenge here is that, as digital transformation increases, so do the attack surfaces for cyber criminals, and the internet of things (IOT) arena of connected devices is an extremely vulnerable space.
There is nothing these criminals like more than to find an under-protected angle of attack that allows them to access the business network, explains Gyula Wendler, Senior Manager: Engineering at Altron Arrow. Once in, he adds, they seek to disrupt services and operations, obtain financial gains – through ransomware attacks – or simply as a way to gain a foothold into sensitive networks.
“There are several reasons behind these devices' IOT vulnerabilities, including the fact that such direct-to-internet connections make devices easily accessible over the web, often without any security countermeasures in place and no control by device makers over their deployment; the use of vulnerable third-party supply chain components; and the fact the devices are unmanaged and often can’t be updated for fixes,” he says.
“Altron Arrow provides a total end-to-end IOT solution for any industry. Of course, given the huge volume and variety of IOT devices, we understand that companies need an easy way to deploy security across all of them.
“We have partnered with Check Point for this very reason – its comprehensive IoT Protect Security solution uses automation and threat intelligence to provide device risk assessment, network segmentation and threat prevention from the most sophisticated of cyber attacks.”
He points out that the integrated solution prevents attacks at both IOT network and device level, even on unpatchable devices. The solution delivers threat prevention and security management capabilities to block even unknown cyber attacks at both the network and device level, using threat intelligence and innovative IOT-specific security services.
“What companies leveraging the IOT really need is a way to undertake both a complete IOT device visibility process and a risk analysis. Check Point identifies and classifies IOT devices on any network, via integration with leading discovery engines, to expose risks such as weak passwords, outdated firmware and known vulnerabilities.
“Moreover, the solution is able to implement both vulnerability mitigation and zero-day threat prevention, even on devices that are supposedly unpatchable. These IOT devices can actually be ‘virtually patched’ in order to fix security flaws in firmware or legacy operating systems.
“Finally, it is worth noting that Check Point’s solutions for IoT Cyber Security are part of Check Point Infinity, the only fully consolidated cyber security architecture that protects your business and IT infrastructure against Gen VI multi-vector ‘Nano’ cyber attacks – across networks, IOT devices, endpoint, cloud and mobile,” he concludes.
For more info, please contact Gyula Wendler: gwendler@arrow.altech.co.za.
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