IOT IN THE ENTERPRISE | HOW DANGEROUS ARE TODAY’S ‘SMART’ DEVICES TO NETWORK SECURITY?

As we’ve noted in a previous post, IoT devices greatly increase the security challenges of defending corporate networks. However, this well-known fact does not seem to have slowed down the adoption of IoT in the enterprise. A recent PwC survey reported that 71% of manufacturers plan to deploy IoT devices despite the associated cyber risks.

Publicado diciembre 22, 2020 en Atlantic Pacific

So it seems like the IoT train has left the station and is rushing full steam ahead towards the horizon. In order to continue to travel safely, enterprises must understand the risks of deploying IoT devices and how to mitigate them. This assessment process should consider the devices that create the risk, an analysis of the type of attacks that they can be used for and the potential implications and regulatory risks.

IoT Devices That Are Susceptible to Hacking

1. Printers

The shy, corner printer could be your greatest adversary. NCC Group researchers identified vulnerabilities and exploitations related to six of the largest enterprise printer makers in the world: Xerox, HP, Lexmark, Kyocera, Brother, and Ricoh. These vulnerabilities include susceptibility to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and a potential for those devices to be used as entry points into corporate networks, with remote code execution and the bypassing of security layers.

A compromised IoT Printer could allow threat actors to spy on your print jobs, send electronic copies of documents to themselves or establish a backdoor into the corporate network.

Hackers have known about these vulnerabilities for quite some time, and have abused these in several APT campaigns. Russian government-linked hackers used printers with weak security to access several global enterprise networks, then tried infiltrating more privileged accounts, according to a Microsoft report.

2. Security Cameras

IP cameras are used in many enterprises as security and safety devices. It’s unsettling to think that these same devices could be used to bypass security mechanisms and put your company at risk. But this is exactly what has happened (and will likely happen again). Back in September 2016, numerous security cameras were breached and “recruited” to a botnet, the likes of which have never been seen before. The infamous Mirai botnet launched what was, back then, the world’s largest DDoS attack, and most of the owners of these devices were not even aware of it. Mirai used a simple script that identified security cameras with built-in default credentials and used these to gain control of the devices.

Ever since, manufacturers worldwide have done a lot to improve the basic security of these devices, but very recently a number of wireless cameras and baby monitors tested by consumer group Which? were found to contain multiple security flaws that could allow hackers to spy on employees and abuse these devices in other ways.

3. Personal Assistants

Personal Assistants like Alexa and Echo are becoming increasingly popular at home, and these devices are also finding their way into enterprises. Unfortunately, Personal Assistants have also been found to be vulnerable to cyber attackers.

For instance, security researchers exploited a flaw in Amazon Echo at a hacking contest. Previous generations of Amazon Echo are susceptible to an old WiFi vulnerability called KRACK , which allows an attacker to perform a man in the middle attack against a WPA2 protected network. Key Reinstallation Attack (KRACK) exploits flaws in the WPA2 Wifi protocol (CVE-2017-13077, CVE-2-17-13078) and allows threat actors to decrypt packets and steal sensitive data sent over plain text. KRACK affects millions of 1st gen Amazon Echo devices and 8th Gen Amazon Kindles.

4. Wearables and Mobile Phones

While the risk of mobile phones and “BYOD” to the enterprise has been acknowledged (but mostly overlooked by many enterprises), their next of kin, wearables, may also pose a considerable risk. Even though wearables don’t store data like emails and files, they can connect to corporate networks and endpoints using Wifi or Bluetooth connections and expose these to the outer world.

5. Novelty Office Items

Threats come in all shapes and sizes, and that includes those novelty items that might make your office seem “cooler” or more efficient but may contain a hidden security risk. A startling example of this is the case of the smart fish tank that was exploited to achieve data exfiltration from a Casino in Las Vegas. The tank’s Internet connectivity allowed it to be remotely monitored, automatically adjusted for temperature and salinity, and to dispense automated feedings. That doesn’t sound too risky and probably seemed like a good way to automate some tiresome chores. However, there were unexpected consequences: the ‘Smart’ fish tank also enabled hackers to swipe 10 gigabytes of data from the casino and to send that data to a remote server in Finland.

Para el ver artículo original: https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/iot-in-the-enterprise-how-dangerous-are-todays-smart-devices-to-network-security/