Excerpts from “Secure Enough? 20 Questions on Cybersecurity for Business Owners and Executives”
Many of the products we purchase today are not just a product. Twenty years ago, if you went into a store and bought a thermostat, you got exactly that: a thermostat. It controlled your heat and/or A/C, and had no ability to do anything else. It wasn’t a concern beyond accurately running your heating or cooling system. Today, a thermostat is not just a thermostat. It’s a computer that happens to be hooked up to temperature sensors and is programmed to control a furnace and air conditioner. Computers can be reprogrammed to do other things. Computers need to be protected from criminals that would try to make them do what the criminal wants rather than what you want. The Internet-connected thermostat, television, security camera, coffee maker, light bulb, juicer, refrigerator, washing machine, and other devices are now all computers. They all have the potential to be attacked, just like your desktop or laptop.
Given the potential damage that these devices can do, the definition of an IoT device is important to understand. Differences of opinion exist on this, so I’m going to focus on the ones that meet the following criteria. For a device to be considered an IoT device, three conditions must be met. An IoT device must:
So what are some of the ways IoT devices be used against your organization?
What are my company’s chances of being targeted? According to a new Gartner forecast, 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide this year — an increase of 31 percent from 2016. While consumers will be the largest group of IoT users, representing 63 percent of overall IoT applications in 2017, businesses are expected to employ 3.1 billion connected things this year.
So what steps my company can take to secure our IoT devices?
© TCE Strategy, 2022