Latin America. A new report from Kaspersky (With superpower comes super responsibility: benefits and challenges of IoT in business) has revealed that the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) on enterprise platforms is growing year after year in almost all sectors. In 2019, nearly two-thirds (61%) of enterprises globally deployed IoT applications.
That technology is benefiting companies with savings, new revenue streams, and increased production efficiency, but the fact that 28% of organizations experience cybersecurity incidents targeting connected devices also reveals the need to carefully protect processes tied to this technology.
The Internet of Things is actively developing the technology, and Gartner predicts there will be approximately 25 billion IoT connections by 2025. IoT increases the level of comfort we experience at home and in our cities, helps solve resource problems, and enables organizations to measure production performance, introduce automation, and increase efficiency. All of this makes IoT systems critical; therefore, it is important not to allow a failure in such systems to ruin the positive impact on businesses and individuals.
Kaspersky's report shows that the use of IoT platforms has increased in almost every industry; the most significant growth has been in the hotel sector (from 53% in 2018 to 63% in 2019), healthcare (from 56% to 66%) and finance (from 60% to 68%). As of 2019, the IT and telecom (71%) and finance (68%) industries have adopted IoT more than all other verticals. IoT platforms are used in many different cases, including smart cities, networks, metering, transportation, and logistics, as well as automated manufacturing and connected heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).
The growth of IoT use has not slowed despite potential cybersecurity risks and incidents. As Kaspersky's survey shows, 28% of companies using IoT platforms stated that last year they had experienced incidents with connected devices, but not related to computing.
These incidents can be critical, as sensors and smart devices collect terabytes of data, including sensitive information such as business data or personal customer information. In addition, IoT platforms can be connected to critical systems, such as traffic, energy or transport processes, so it is vital to ensure their continuity and integrity.
"IoT is a powerful business enabler, but to reap its benefits organizations must make a considerable effort. It demands dedicated business processes, as well as expertise, to ensure it is implemented effectively. As the survey shows, cybersecurity is also an issue that needs to be resolved in the IoT space, when it comes to equipment security, technical and organizational protection measures, and data privacy, as well as other factors, so it's important to consider security from an early stage in IoT implementation." explained Grigory Sizov, Head of The KasperskyOS Business Unit, at Kaspersky.
To securely take advantage of the features and benefits of IoT, Kaspersky suggests that organizations follow these steps:
Evaluate the security status of a device prior to deployment. Preference should be given to devices that have cybersecurity certificates and to products from those manufacturers that pay more attention to information security.
Conduct regular security audits and provide up-to-date information on threat intelligence to the security team responsible for protecting IoT systems.
Establish procedures to obtain information on relevant vulnerabilities in software and applications, as well as available updates to ensure adequate and timely responses to any incident.
Implement cybersecurity solutions designed to analyze network traffic and detect and prevent network attacks in IoT, and then integrate the analysis into the enterprise network security system.
Use IoT devices that are secured by design. The Kaspersky IoT Secure Gateway, with KasperskyOS at its core, ensures the secure behavior of the gateway, as well as all connected devices and the entire IoT system.
