Securing the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is exploding in size and complexity, connecting a huge universe of consumer, industrial, and digital devices to the network.

The rapid evolution of IoT is exciting, but securing it has become a major challenge for organizations in every sector. And as connected devices proliferate, the attack surface grows larger. That means that organizations will need teams of professionals with the skills to safeguard and protect their IoT networks and environments. Its an exciting field thats expanding rapidly, and jobs are in high demand. But how to get started? This white paper helps answer that question by: Explaining whats prompting the expansion of IoT Providing an overview of the resulting risk landscape Offering best practices on how to protect your organization from such risks Sharing how Cisco Security certifications can help optimize your IoT security posture.

The big bang: Why this is happening now There are some five billion connected devices in the world today, according to Gartner. And 50 billion IoT endpoints are expected to populate the planet by the year 2020. Nearly 30 percent of businesses worldwide have at least limited IoT deployments, by Strategy Analytics count. And IDC suggests that IoT will be a US$7 trillion industry by 2020. IoT promises to boost corporate profits worldwide by 21 percent in 2022. Thats because IoT can help businesses lower costs by realizing new efficiencies, and boost new revenues by supporting new business models.

Digitization is changing every part of todays enterprise, notes Tejas Vashi, director of product strategy and marketing for Learning@ Cisco at Cisco Services. To take advantage of new business opportunities, organizations are moving quickly to designing and deploying new technologies like cloud, mobility, analytics, IoT, and next-generation security.

Digital transformation in general, and IoT in particular, can help organizations become more efficient and more responsive to their customers. They also can allow businesses to expand from one-time product sales to models that generate recurring revenue. Here are a few examples of IoT applications and their benefits: Sensors on assembly lines can identify flaws, allowing those problems to be addressed very quickly and sometimes in an automated way. Smart garbage cans and vending machines can communicate to cities and businesses that theyre full or empty, so workers only have to visit them when needed. That can eliminate truck rolls, resulting in savings in human resources, gasoline, and vehicle maintenance. And it can help reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion in the process. IoT devices of all sorts can collect data for analysis to allow for more informed decision making. And that can make our lives and businesses safer, more comfortable, and more profitable. Digital transformation and IoT already have given rise to new and successful businesses in a wide variety of areas, including lodging, retail, and transportation. And weve seen existing companieseven very large and well-established onesreinvent themselves by employing technology to create potentially enormous savings and new ways of doing things. For example, data collection and analysis can help airlines realize major savings. Estimates suggest that just a 1 percent reduction in jet fuel use could save the airline industry a whopping $30 billion over 15 years. That demonstrates that even seemingly small advances can have very impactful implications. If youre already on the path to digital transformation, thats great news. Youll probably be much better positioned for both short- and long-term success than your competitors who are slower to adapt to our new digital reality. Companies that dont evolve are likely to go the way of the dinosaur. Just look at how digital technology has already disrupted the bookseller, camera and film, sporting goods, and taxi services businesses. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Indeed. IoT is just part of a larger trend here. And that trend is digital transformation. Communications and networking technology are helping organizations do things in entirely new ways. And thats both a huge opportunity and a major threat for businesses. IDC estimates the economic value of digital transformation to be $20 trillion, or more than 20 percent, of the global gross domestic product. Of the more than 1,600 companies IDC studied, the research firm said 67 percent are in the early stages of their transformation as digital explorers or digital players, and fewer than 5 percent of companies are fully transformed. The full disruptive impact of digital transformation (DX) has not yet been realized but is well on its way and is going to fundamentally change business markets and how companies attract, delight, and retain customers, IDC notes.

Some estimates suggest 40 percent of companies that are leaders in their verticals today will be replaced in the next 10 years. The risk landscape: What you need to look out for So while failure to undergo a digital transformation is not an option, implementing IoT itself has challenges. That includes figuring out how to secure connected devices and networks, and the data they handle. This is important because the more connections and connected devices you have, the greater the opportunity for bad actors to steal data, gain unauthorized control of assets, and even potentially threaten safety. Consider how cybercriminals can remotely control and bring down anything from a website to a back-end business system to a connected car to a power grid to implanted medical devices to a countrys weapons arsenal. More than a billion malware detections and incidents, affecting more than 100 million IoT devices, occurred during the June through November 2016 time period alone, according to The CommLaw Group. IoT devices pose an inside-out risk as well. They can be enlisted to help stage attacks. In October 2016s Mirai botnet attack, cybercriminals leveraged an army of insecure IoT devices to level a Mirai denial-of-service (DoS) attack on an Internet infrastructure company. Tens of millions of connected devices, including closed circuit TV cameras, DVRs, and routers owned by a range of companies and individuals who were unaware of the attack, were employed. And many high-profile online services and websites were attacked and became unavailable as a result. The Internet infrastructure company targeted in this case said it commonly sees distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. But, it added, the use of Internet-enabled devices is now opening the door to a whole new scale of attack. As Robert Westervelt, security research manager at IDC, recently commented: As industrial companies pursue industrial IoT (IIoT), its important to understand the new threats that can impact critical operations. Greater connectivity with operational technology exposes operational teams to the types of attacks that IT teams are used to seeing, but with even higher stakes. The concern for a cyberattack is no longer focused on loss of data, but safety and availability. Consider an energy utility as an examplecyberattacks could disrupt power supply for communities and potentially have impact to life and safety. One challenge to securing these environments is that many IoT endpoint manufacturers simply have not built security into their products. Thats in part because they know that people want inexpensive devices, and adding security to them adds cost. Also, the limited processing power of some endpoints restricts encryption.

IoT creates new security challenges

To secure connections among people, processes, data, and things, security needs to be as ubiquitous as the Internet of Things. Physical and cybersecurity solutions must work intelligently together and protect the networks, devices, applications, users, and data that make up the IoT.

Increase in connected devices Increase in amount of data Move to automation Processing data at the edge

37% of data will be processed at the edge (mobile devices, appliances, routers) by 2017

Read article and then prepare a short report for Securing the Internet of Things. Pdf link below

http://docs.media.bitpipe.com/io_13x/io_138814/item_1588083/Securing%20the%20IoT.pdf

Thank you in advance.