A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Cybercriminals understand this, which is why they often go after vendors and service providers connected to a target, instead of the target itself.
While a major bank or hospital may have effective cybersecurity measures in place, often their HVAC vendor doesn’t.
This poses an important question – are you putting your clients at risk?
Have you considered how the Internet of Things can affect security? Up to 20.4 billion IoT devices will be online by the end of this year, so it’s important to understand how they work and what they mean for cybersecurity.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a natural evolution of the Internet, consisting of a myriad of new “smart” and “connected” products and technologies for the commercial, consumer, and government environments.
Although such systems may have been known in the past as Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, with the advent of cheap, ubiquitous Internet, cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity, new uses and efficiencies have extended the functionality of these legacy systems.
In addition, on the consumer and office side, vendors are rushing to meet the growing market demand for new products that are always-on, connected, and available. Unfortunately, aspects of product security and lifecycle are often treated as an afterthought at best in the development and production of these products.
This leaves users with numerous standalone networks of devices, with proprietary and custom protocols, and not much of a standard for control, management, or oversight of these devices. As these intranets of devices are ultimately connected to the internal and public Internets, new vectors to launch attacks against important assets and networks are provided to adversaries and hackers.
Recent advances in HVAC technology have applied smart technology to consumer controls and management systems. If you’re not making sure they’re secured, then you’re leaving your clients at risk.
If these devices aren’t safeguarded, there’s a lot of potential consequences resulting from hackers:
Fortunately, smart devices can be protected with a range of different security solutions, including:
The best way is to ask for help – SemTech IT will help implement robust security measures for your smart devices, deploying security devices like firewalls and antivirus software, patching best practices, intrusion and gateway protection and more.
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