2020 has been an interesting year so far. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it an accelerated work-from-home model that businesses are learning to adapt to. It also come with some security risks as most businesses are learning how to address the cyber security vulnerabilities that come with it.
Working-from-home already comes with many risk factors: your spouse or children may hear or see information they shouldn’t, or you may be using your own personal device, which in turn, is the family device which could be riddled with viruses. IOT (Internet of Things) is another potential risk that you and many businesses may not have thought about.
IOT is the term used to describe those connected devices we have at home: cameras, refrigerators, and smart doorbells just to name a few. While it seems far fetched, it really isn’t that difficult for a hacker to get access to one of these devices, and then attack the corporate network. For instance, there are still a large number of cameras connected to the Internet with default credentials. Attackers can easily take advantage of this low-hanging fruit and potentially access systems that were never intended for the public.
Hacking IOT to gain access to networks isn’t something new either. While it’s expected to gain traction during the pandemic, it’s a tool that hackers have had at their disposal for some time. Think of the 2017 case of a US casino who was hacked via the Internet-connected fish tank. At the time, Business Insider wrote: “The attackers used (the fish tank thermostat) to get a foothold in the network… They then found the high-roller database and then pulled that back across the network, out the thermostat, and up to the cloud.”
So how can you reduce the risks to your business from IOT? A lot of it starts with cyber awareness training. Training users how to sport COVID-19 scams, as well as teaching the importance of good password hygiene for home and work devices will help reduce the risks. Deploying a secure Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) for remote workers is a key component of reducing the risk from home IOT devices.
If you are feeling the challenges of trying to secure your business while staff are working remotely, contact Uzado today. 