Risk of Connected Devices

What are the Risks of Internet-Connected Devices?

To stay competitive, organizations react quickly when business conditions change. During the pandemic, many organizations moved rapidly to enable employees to work from home and use personal devices to access sensitive data.  But organizations were not the only ones taking swift action — so were hackers. In 2020, Cloud-based attacks rose 630% between January and April. Hackers are attacking the increased vulnerabilities presented by employees working from home, sometimes using unsecured devices to access sensitive data hosted in the cloud.

What are the security risks of internet-connected devices? 

Every endpoint offers an entry point for hackers.  The more devices connected to the web, the more endpoints for hackers to exploit.  Each new web-enabled device that connects to your network increases the attack surface of your network. When organizations make business decisions without careful consideration for the digital risk, cybersecurity professionals are left doing damage control after the data breach. Many of these incidents could have been prevented had the CISO been included in business planning. This includes scenarios such as allowing employees to work from home or using their own devices to access sensitive data. When considering new initiatives, organizations are wise to include cybersecurity experts to help them anticipate risk to their data.  

What’s an unmanaged device?

When your employee accesses your company’s database via their iPad on a wireless device, that makes for two unmanaged devices accessing your data — the iPad and the wireless router.  When organizations allow unmanaged devices to tap into their networks, these devices increase the attack surface for a hacker to access those networks and exploit their data. Are you prepared to protect your sensitive data accessed by unmanaged devices?  Do you have the endpoint security tools to support policies to work from home and bring your own device?  Many organizations do not.  In the list below, see the ways that internet-connected devices jeopardize network security. Risks of Interconnected Devices The risks are high when it comes to allowing unmanaged web-connected devices to tap into your organization’s network.  Although data leaks are inevitable; damage is optional.

Take steps to prevent hacking via web-enabled devices 

  1. Know your risk:  discover all web-connected devices on your network
  2. Patch up your life:  patch printers and other easily patchable devices
  3. Segment all web-connected devices across VLANs:  segment your devices so you know precisely how many and what kind of devices are accessing your multiple data sources
  4. Enable active monitoring:  use augmented intelligence (machine learning + human analysis) to actively discover and investigate critical data leaks
  5. Receive instant alerts for sensitive data leaks via a web-enabled device or other methods

Data breach preventionHow do you know if your data is being hacked unless you check every day? As data breach prevention experts, at CybelAngel, we use advanced machine learning coupled with detailed analysis by cybersecurity experts to identify data leaks anywhere they occur on the web, including via IoT devices and the deep, dark, and public web.   When planning for changing business requirements, diminish risk to your data, and your business, by including the CISO in discussions.  For more on this, see our webinar series for CISOs.   If you suspect your database is compromised, take preventive measures.  CybelAngel offers a platform to protect against data leaks, plus Remediation Services on third-party sites.  To get an idea of your company’s exposure to data leaks on the internet, get a free assessment (including free dashboard).  Knowing your data vulnerabilities is the first step to remediating data leaks on web-connected devices.