Integrated solution prevents attacks at both IoT network and device level, even on unpatchable devices: protects critical infrastructure, industrial, healthcare, smart city and smart building environments

By Russ Schafer, Head of Product Marketing, Security Platforms

It is estimated that over 41 billion IoT devices will be connected in the next few years. Given 127 new devices connect to the internet every second, that seems to be a conservative estimate. The real impact can be seen in businesses, where it has boosted productivity, efficiency and brought huge cost savings. IoT areas include Smart Office, Smart Building, Smart Cities, Healthcare, Industrial OT.

Today, 93% of enterprises, 92% of industrial organizations and 87% of health care organizations use IoT, so almost every organization is impacted.  From IP camera’s and smart elevators to patient monitors, MRI machines and industrial control systems, critical processes are dependent now on connected IoT devices.

Cyber Security Risk is Real and Amplified by Coronavirus

But connecting IoT devices to your network extends the attack surface for cyber criminals, and adds entrance points for hackers to target. Cyber criminals have taken advantage of the remote work required by the coronavirus by stepping up their attacks on medical, enterprise, and industrial IoT devices and critical infrastructure.  The remote work required by the Coronavirus has amplified the security risk as more employees are working remotely with fewer security barriers on their home networks than they would have in the workplace.   

The security risk is real as 67% of enterprises and 82% of healthcare organizations have experienced IoT security incidents and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure have increased 2000% in 2019, often damaging critical operations or holding them hostage through ransomware.

IoT and OT Assets are Inherently Vulnerable

IoT devices run on legacy and proprietary software that was not designed with built in security. These devices have weak or hardcoded passwords that are easy to break into.  These IoT device were not originally designed for network connectivity much less security. They lack sufficient user, data and system authentication capabilities. Their software cannot be updated or patched frequently, due to access limitations, concerns over downtime or the need to re-certify systems. Windows XP is a primary underlying system for IoT/OT. Adversaries know the operating system is an Achilles’ heel because it is no longer actively supported by Microsoft, and it is extremely difficult and costly for businesses to update mission-critical devices that run XP.

This has made them a prime target for tailored APT attacks, traditional malware, phishing and ransomware attacks that usually start on the IT network. IoT and OT devices are an especially enticing target for attackers who use ransomware because they know that businesses would rather pay the ransom than face having the machine offline—or, worse, taken down completely. What kind of security systems can address all these challenges?

You can’t protect what you can’t see

While IoT and OT environments in organizations are growing increasingly complex, traditional IT security solutions have remained far behind.  The starting point is increased risk visibility.  Companies need an easy way to determine what devices they have and determine their vulnerabilities and risk.  The second is being able to monitor the IoT and OT protocols and commands, so it can determine if the systems are connecting and communicating properly.  The third is to enable you to create security policies designed for IoT and OT systems that can prevent security breaches and keep up with the latest threats. All this has to be done without impacting security operations.  Security must be easy for organizations to deploy with automated protection that does not impact day to day operations.

Check Point IoT Protect is the solution!

Introducing Check Point IoT Protect: Prevent.  Adapt. Everywhere

Check Point Protect identifies any IoT device on the network, assesses its risk, prevents unauthorized access to and from IoT devices with zero-trust segmentation, blocks IoT malicious intents with industry leading threat prevention security services and on-device run-time protection..

IoT Discovery and Risk Analysis

Check Point enables you to discover all IoT and OT assets and determine security risks and vulnerabilities.  From a single console, you can view all assets classified based on their risk level and drill down for a risk analysis per asset.

Check Point’s unique IoT Protect Firmware Assessment can understand the inherent security flaw and vulnerability risk associated with your IoT device including quick mitigation steps.

Recommended Zero Trust Segmentation Security Policies

Once you understand your risks, Check Point suggests Zero Trust security policies customized per device to instantly minimize your risk exposure.  This can save you months of manual policy configurations and ensures your IoT and OT assets are secure from the first moment they connect to the network. This allows you to easily implement policies that will ensure systems only use communication protocols they are allowed to use and enables you to block unauthorized access to and from your IoT and OT devices.

Threat Prevention Starts with IT/OT Network Segmentation

They key to network design is segmenting your IT and IoT networks, so hackers can’t latterly move across your IT infrastructure to the manufacturing facility. Check Point Quantum Security Gateways ™ with Next-Generation Firewall software provide boundary protection between the IT and the IoT networks and micro segmentation among device types, product lines and departments.  With granular visibility into SCADA protocols and commands, these firewalls provide access control throughout the OT environments.

Threat Prevention with Protection Against the latest Threats

As we learned earlier, security should be easy to implement without impacting operations.   Check Point’s solution enables to you protect all devices against known and unknown Zero day attacks through virtual pathing.  Check Point has over 300 IPS prevention signatures against IoT OT related attacks and 10,000 against IT attacks. These signatures are constantly being updated through our Check Point’s ThreatCloud,the largest threat intelligence network on the globe. It has unmatched visibility into the latest malware and phishing attacks. Check Point takes IoT protection a step further with unique on-device run-time security. Let’s take a closer look.

Prevent Attacks with Device Run-Time Security

If you build IoT or OT devices, the expanding threat landscape requires you to secure your devices out of the box to protect your customers from cyber attacks. Check Point’s revolutionary IoT Protect Nano Agent provides on-device runtime protection enable connected devices with built-in-security. The lightweight and easy-to-embed IoT Protect Nano Agent makes your device resilient to any cyber threat.

To see how IoT Protect works, SIGN UP FOR THE FREE DEMO or get your IoT device tested with the FREE IoT Protect Firmware Assessment
Otherwise, sign up for one of our upcoming IoT Protect webinars on:

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