{"id":36137,"date":"2019-12-10T12:53:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T12:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=36137"},"modified":"2019-12-10T12:53:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T12:53:33","slug":"protecting-the-iot-driven-network-a-multi-stage-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/12\/10\/protecting-the-iot-driven-network-a-multi-stage-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the IoT-driven network \u2013 a multi-stage approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Simon Wilson, CTO HPE Aruba UK and Ireland, gives us invaluable advice on deploying a multi-stage strategy to ensure protection vulnerable IoT-driven networks. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Internet of Things (IoT) is more than just the next\nstage in technical development. For many businesses it represents a valuable\nsource of data which can be used to gain new insight into processes, operations\nand customer activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offering the potential to spot and fix inefficiencies,\nidentify new revenue streams and much more, it has real economic potential for\nthose who are able to correctly develop, network and generate an investment\nreturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, crucial to the realisation of this potential is\nsecurity. As the breadth and complexity of devices on the network continues to\ngrow at a staggering rate, many organisations are struggling to secure this\nrapidly expanding attack surface. If they are unable to get a handle on the\nsituation, then it will prove difficult to tap into the efficiencies and\noutcomes which make any IoT investment worthwhile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this isn\u2019t the first time IT teams have faced a\ndevice-based security challenge \u2013 the rise of BYOD and remote working both introduced\nan influx of mobile devices into the business environment for IT to deal with. And\nthe way we got through it then is the same as we will now \u2013 by taking three\nsimple steps to ensure a secured network. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step One: Start with visibility <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put simply, you can\u2019t secure what you can\u2019t see. Before you\ncan take any other steps, it\u2019s crucial that you are able to accurately map what\ndevices are connected to your network, who is operating them, and how and why\nthey\u2019re connecting to your network. As well as getting a handle on your own \u2018official\u2019\ndevices, shadow IoT \u2013 whereby staff connect devices to the network without\ninforming IT teams or taking necessary precautions \u2013 is also something you have\nto consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally identification has been fairly straight forward\n\u2013 IT teams worked against a narrow set of devices using well practised\ntechniques and then employed profiling to say what each person or device should\nor shouldn\u2019t be allowed to do on the network. But with many of today\u2019s devices\nbuilt with generic hardware and software, or coming from emerging vendors who\ndon\u2019t follow standards; discovery, profiling and identification is proving more\nand more challenging. And if you can\u2019t figure out what something is in order to\nlabel it good or bad, how can you create a reliable profile and keep operations\nmoving?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is to increase our focus\non context and Machine Learning. If we can\u2019t rely on being able to\nidentify exactly what is using our network, we need to look at the behaviour of\nthe device instead. In many scenarios a combination of what protocols a device\nis using and what data, applications or URLs it is accessing is the only way to\nbuild up an accurate picture of what the device actually is and whether the\ndevice is malicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step two: Build in Artificial Intelligence to enforce\npolicy automatically<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI is also important in the next\nstage of securing IoT \u2013 enforcing policy. Today\u2019s IT teams need closed-loop,\nend-to-end access control from the moment a device joins the network. Given the\nsheer quantities of IoT devices, however, manual intervention is no longer\npractical. IoT devices are likely to be operating around the clock, or with\nsome devices connecting at non-specific times to carry out a task before returning\nto sleep mode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a heart monitor on ward B begins to transmit its data to\na network across the country at 3am, the reality is that a manual monitoring\nprocess is highly unlikely to catch the transfer in time for the device to be\nquarantined and investigated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, deploying AI allows teams to develop policies that\nleverage context, such as the user role, device type, certificate status, and\nlocation or day of week, to make quick and accurate decisions each and every\ntime. When an IoT\ndevice joins a network or starts to act suspiciously, it can be automatically\nsegmented, keeping traffic separate and secure, with the policy consistently\nenforced across wired and wireless networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machine Learning-based analytics can also build baselines\nfor normal IoT devices \u2013 like authentication, remote access and internal access\nto high-value resources as well as cloud app usage across network and log data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step three: Monitoring for suspicious behaviour<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019ve used the above steps to allow a device onto your\nnetwork however you can\u2019t just leave it unchecked. You can only accurately enforce\nand create a relevant and applicable access policy if you are continually monitoring\nactivities. Active monitoring is essential to keeping your network secure,\nlooking for authenticity, new behaviours and new vulnerabilities \u2013 profiling\nand analytics are key here.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friendly device may not always be friendly and you should\nalways be on the lookout for recognised devices acting in unusual ways or\ntrying to access different parts of the network. Security is a constantly\nevolving and changing landscape and unfortunately the job will never be \u2018done\u2019.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Securing the IoT revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advent of IoT has the potential to revolutionise\nbusiness critical applications. We shouldn\u2019t shy away from this potential\nbecause of concerns about risk \u2013 instead we must plan, adapt, learn and secure.\nThis is crucial to enabling the huge potential of this technology to be realised.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By setting up comprehensive visibility as an essential\nfoundation and then building Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on\ntop of this teams can stay one step ahead of, and reduce, the escalating number\nof risks facing the business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Security is not a barrier to IoT\nadoption, it is the cornerstone for successful adoption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Wilson, CTO HPE Aruba UK and Ireland, gives us invaluable advice on deploying a multi-stage strategy to ensure protection vulnerable IoT-driven networks. The Internet of Things (IoT) is more than just the next stage in technical development. For many businesses it represents a valuable source of data which can be used to gain new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":36140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,1489,13207,93],"tags":[28,54],"class_list":["post-36137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise-security","category-insights","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","tag-iot","tag-security"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36139,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36137\/revisions\/36139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}