Rethinking the Role of a CISO during the rise of IoT

According to Gartner, there will be over 25 billion IoT products by 2021, underscoring the paradigm shift in the role of CISO, including managing safety risks and protecting sensitive data. In essence, the role and job responsibility of CISO is changing with the rise in IoT devices. For the reason that agent-based computational models can’t protect IoT devices, CISOs must rethink by adopting new techniques to mitigate IoT security threats. Besides, CISOs must work with private and federal sectors to design and make IoT devices more secure. Otherwise, the lawmakers will hold them responsible for failing to implement IoT security solutions as a safety control measure for IT environments.

How secure are IoT devices?

How smart is your home? That matters while analyzing the security risks of IoT devices. All the devices working over the IoT environment are at risk and can lead to serious security concerns and data protection issues. According to a report on Internet Security Threat by Symantec, there’s a twofold increase in attempted attacks against IoT devices, and the number keeps increasing year-by-year. And due to the increased use of smart devices, these risks are also increasing with every passing day, and so are the responsibilities of a CISO.

Reasons behind the rapidly increasing IoT network security issues

CPS (Cyber-physical systems) might be the reason why OT (Operational Technology) devices are used in some crucial industrial infrastructures and IoT devices used in healthcare facilities, building management systems, and other smart devices. It could also be due to the emerging demand for IoT in the market. It seems to intrigue the manufacturers and designers to market their products for sales as soon as possible, rather than spending extra time and efforts on IoT security technologies that can help to strengthen their security systems. Each organization needs an active CISO to establish and maintain a strong strategy, vision, and programs that can guarantee IoT security solutions.

Why do we need IoT security?

With the explosive increase in IoT products, we have started controlling every aspect of life with devices without even realizing the security risks and their outcomes. Did every manufacturer or designer of IoT provide a reliable IoT security system? Everyone is in the race of enhancing their place in the market, and even the most reliable companies like IBM, Google, Intel, Cisco, IEEE, and others seem to lack the impetus to build the best security systems for their IoT products.

As much as IoT is providing opportunities, security risks are also increasing. No doubt, securing a massive network of interconnected devices is a big challenge, which is hard to accomplish as the hackers and cybercriminals are also progressing their hacking tactics. As such, there’s tremendous need to figure out a secure IoT network security as it is increasing the governance risk and compliance. Once your network is hacked, a hacker can gain access to every connected device and control the operations performed by your devices and steal your personal information to use it for any purpose.

User identity can be doxed anywhere while on the internet. One of the most prevalent security issues is credit cards being hacked via online shopping. So, IoT security technologies need to be very strong to bear such attacks and protect your information. CISO also plays an important role here in strategizing and implementing IoT security solutions to mitigate risks.

How can we improve our IoT security?

IoT network security factors should be implemented in the design phase by choosing a secure design and increased transparency that can notify users if their data is shared or used by other sources. To solve this, it would be most ideal if users are given access each time their data is used somewhere other than from trusted networks. At the user end, we can only protect our data by avoiding and reducing the devices connected over IoT networks. This can decrease entry points to access our network.

Another way we can improve our IoT security is to avoid critical and unreliable paths that are most likely to breach our security paths. You can only minimize the risk of attacks at your end. However, manufacturers and CISO executives can work on providing the best possible IoT security solutions.

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