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The World IoT Day. Conclusion? Unsecure IoT Networks.

We are experiencing a drastic change in how people are working due to this unprecedented pandemic. We reported some of the cybersecurity risks associated with working from home in our previous blog post.

However, it’s not only cyber threats associated related to employees working on their personal computers at home – it’s also the ever-growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices in our life.

As we are celebrating the World IoT Day, let’s have a look at how the IoT is doing today.

There are now over 20 billion IoT devices across the world and it is predicted that IoT spending will surpass the $1 trillion mark in 2022, a 15% increase over 2018’s $646 billion.

In the current environment, more people than ever are working from home. With enterprises and their teams adapting to the new practices, the lines have blurred between company-owned and privately owned devices – and between the workplace and home.

There can be dozens of connected ‘smart’ devices in employee’s home – from TVs to speakers, and even fridges – and the enterprise IT teams might not even be aware of some of the devices generating IoT traffic.

And, according to an analysis of cloud traffic conducted by Zscaler, the volume of traffic generated by both authorized and unauthorized internet-of-things (IoT) devices is skyrocketing, adding to enterprise security risks.

The study analyzed nearly 500 million IoT transactions from more than 2,000 organizations over a two-week period and found 553 different IoT devices from more than 200 different manufacturers, many of which had their security turned off or not even using basic security.

There is a great deal of unauthorized IoT taking place inside the perimeter of enterprise firewalls and this culture of ‘shadow IoT’ is creating new IoT-based attack opportunities for cybercriminals – particularly as securing IoT devices is often an after thought for organizations.

The survey was recently featured in an article by Network World, where the journalist made the astute comment:

“This is an age-old problem I have seen time and again; a hot new technology comes along, everyone rushes to embrace it, then they think about securing it later. IoT is no different.”

It’s more essential than ever for organizations to protect and encrypt all IoT systems that might connect to their corporate network. Jack Wolosewicz, Cyberus Labs CEO, CTO & co-founder, talks on the need for an IoT cybersecurity at the present stage:

There is a lot of illness in the IoT and it needs an immune system. Our ELIoT Pro provides that immune system. If you think of the potential of IoT you will see huge numbers about how many IoT devices are going to be deployed by 2025 or 2030 and how much the IoT market is going to be worth. Let me tell you that without an immune system that works none of that is going to happen. Because nobody wants a smart car that can be hijacked easily, or a smart home that can turn against its owner, or a smart grid that can be hacked and bring down the power for entire city or a state. The cybersecurity is a gateway to all those industries. Without it those industries will not survive.

Cyberus Labs’ latest product ELIoT Pro is the world’s first password-free, end-to-end solution, specifically designed for IoT systems.

By combining secure Human to Machine (H2M), and Machine to Machine (M2M) authentication and communication with our revolutionary lightweight encryption (LE), ELIoT Pro offer ultra secure, yet easy-to-use, protection to make your IoT network, data and devices safer than ever.

Our LE requires lower computing power and memory (less than 2KB) than any encryption system today – making it work on even the simplest IoT devices.

To find out more about how ELIoT Pro can offer the ultimate, user-friendly protection for your IoT system, visit our products pay here.