Gartner in one of its reports namely, “Inadequate security sees surge in IoT data breaches, study shows” has confirmed that data breaches linked to IoTs have increased considerably over the last two years.

Internet of Things (IoT)

We do come across numerous IoT security breaches in the last few years. The TRENDNet Webcam hack is one of them. While TRENDnet promoted their cameras for home security and baby monitoring purposes, they hardly speculated that their devices could be under the radar of hackers. Unfortunately, within a few days, the organization came to know that there were security loopholes that were already found and exploited by cyber crooks. Due to the faulty software, anyone could access the IP address of the device and the hackers found out the login credentials only to take entire control of the devices. It is a basic security practice to secure IP addresses against hacking and encrypt login credentials which TRENDnet surprisingly failed to do and the convenience of IoT could not fructify.

Any IoT device consists of built-in sensors that are connected to the IoT platforms which store data from the connected devices. This storing of data happens very tactfully because the IoT device itself selects the data which are relevant to execute the required action and perform the desired task. With the benefits of a connected world in industries like healthcare, transportation or manufacturing in Smart cities, the devices insecurely connected to the internet pose significant security risks. Any time it can become a backdoor entry point of the hackers and cripple the entire ecosystem. If the deployment of IoT network lacks proper user authorization mechanism, secured access control or multi-factor authentication, then the cyber crooks take the opportunity to misuse the vulnerability and breach data. As a result, the entire objective of IoT convenience is destroyed.

Cloud Environment

Security breaches of cloud-based access drew the attention of the IT security officials way back in 2012. The Dropbox incident was the first eye-opener where IT officers first came to know that cloud-based access control mechanism can also be breached beyond recovery. More than 68 million user accounts, email addresses were compromised by hackers and made their way to the dark web at the price of almost $1,141. Unfortunately, Dropbox had to wash their hands off from any kind of attempt to recover the data and requested a site-wide password reset from the user base.

Following their footsteps, the National Electoral Institute of Mexico became a victim of data breach in 2016. Almost 93 million voters’ registration was compromised due to poorly configured database that made this sensitive information publicly available. Later on, it was found that the Institute was storing data insecurely on a cloud server outside the country.

Today, hosted environments like cloud platforms are more targeted by organized cyber criminals. Since CIOs nowadays prefer business enablers like cloud platforms or MSP environments to store data assets, cyber criminals are opting for advanced and sophisticated ways to breach data. This is resulting in the expansion of risk surface and higher data vulnerabilities. Even today, many organizations turn a blind eye towards the security of data while storing in the cloud or migrating to the MSP environment. An inadequate access control mechanism, absence of multi-factor authentication, absence of granular level control, lack of adaptive authentication and no provision for monitoring tasks create a huge security gap.

Role of Privileged Access Management (PAM)

The privileged accounts are always vulnerable to security threats. These accounts are typically targeted by cyber crooks to breach information due to intrinsic significance in the whole IT infra fabric. That’s why organizations need to pay close attention to who is accessing what, why and when?

Refer to our article – How Malicious Insiders are the Biggest threat to Privileged accounts?

The extent of risk depends on the number of privileged accounts – the more number of privileged accounts, the risk also increases because too many accounts increase administrators’ challenges. Organizations should adopt the principle of Least Privilege. The concept of least privileges means that IT administrators limit allocating new privileges as far as possible which helps to seamlessly manage and monitor privileged user activities.

A robust ARCON Privileged Access Management can provide adequate safeguards aimed at mitigating information systems related risks. This tool enables IT operations and security teams to effectively monitor all privileged accounts thus ensuring a smooth digital transformation journey for the organization whilst limiting the privileged user access defined by roles and rules.

ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real-time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.

From large retailers analyzing and predicting customers’ purchasing decisions to supply chain firms adopting ‘smart’ technologies to ensure quality controls, disruptive technologies such as big data analytics and the IOTs have enabled firms to capture and effectively use the vital statistics in a real-time.

It has also positively touched our personal lives. Those colorful silicone bands and the ones made from synthetic fiber — omnipresent few years ago as weput on our hands to look ‘cool’ or raise funds for charity purposes—have been gradually replaced by fitness bands that serve as health monitors.

And yes a gigantic amount of information captured by big data and its potential use in modelling infrastructure plans like more efficient transportation systems promises to make cities more futuristic looking ahead.

For modern-day enterprises and government bodies, success hinge on how efficient they are in collating vital information.

Central to all the recent developments is a need to collect the actual data, evaluate it, and make best available decisions.

Data, undoubtedly, is the most valued asset for today’s organizations.It is the engine for growth and innovation.

And that’s why protecting critical data from a possible breach has become one of the biggest challenges as firms risk persistent threats from malicious insiders and external malefactors.

But are we doing enough to secure our digital assets? In this digital era, we are no more custodians of our digital assets. Those vital pieces of information are stored typically in cloud environments, which means that any rogue hacker or state-sponsored cyber attackers can exploit vulnerabilities, if our IT systems are found to be compromised.

A spate of highly successful cyber attacks in the recent past involving banks, an internet company, and government organizations have proved that point.

Likewise, while disruptive technologies like AI and IOTs promise increased productivity and efficiency, under preparedness to deal with rising cyber attacks possibly will lead to a disaster and undercut the advancements.

In this backdrop, it is imperative how we manage and monitor our digital assets. Organizations should maintain an effective identification andideally two-factor verification systems in place. Data centers should be shielded with Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), and a host of antimalware software that can prevent execution of advanced threats and will allow us to monitor network traffic. But more importantly, we need to guard against a growing threat of data misuse. Data breach, particularly from privileged accounts or successful DDOS attacks could bring an entire organization to a standstill.

About time organizations of all shapes and sizes realize that investors, in fact all stakeholders, nowadays don’t gauge organizations’ potential through skimming the free cash-flows, business models, and other financial ratios; the ability to withstand a growing numbers of cyber attacks by adopting preventive measures will differentiate winners from losers.

Consider you are planning a trip to the most exotic location in the world. Well, being in this location is the end goal – the last step. The most important first step would be – ‘Do I have a passport?’ So for convenience, you have a passport. The next step will be to chalk out your itinerary, decide which places you want to visit, how many days you would need, which hotel to stay in…But wait hold on a minute. Have you wondered why you need a passport? What that passport defines? You probably know it, but let me explain. That passport is your identity, it defines your existence. That’s how you are recognized anywhere in the world. Why is that required though? Simple. Every country has their own people and any outsider for that country is a threat. But at the same time, these outsiders are needed to increase their revenue, to promote cultural exchange, to facilitate and bring in business opportunities – in short for globalization. So how do the countries ensure a secure pathway for these outsiders to come in and go out? By relying on the passport. The passport is the first level of trust. This forms the basis for their trust on you. And they validate this trust by issuing you a coveted badge called the ‘visa’. So you have a passport, you got your visa and now you are a free bird. You can go to your most exotic location because you are a privileged member who has the authorization and the right to access this country albeit with limited access rights but rights after all.

Once you are in the country, you roam around and try to visit as many places as you can within this nation. Nobody is there to micromanage you or keep a constant check on where you are going or what you are doing. Would you call this a vulnerability – not necessarily, but there might be people with the intention of a wrong-doing who might be skilled to make this a vulnerability and exploit it to the country’s disadvantage jeopardizing the security of the nation.

An even worse scenario would be if a citizen of the country in the visa authorization department used his privileged access to somehow smuggle in someone who was not supposed to be in the country with the intention of putting the country’s critical infrastructure (read scenic beauty, high raised buildings, cultural heritage etc.) and assets (citizens, business activities, confidential country specific records) at risk.

So you see there is a pattern in which a country’s security is put at risk. Get privileged access to the country, use that privileged right to find vulnerabilities to exploit and attack – in short identify the most important privileged access rights into the country, in this case the visa and the passport.

But this cannot happen so easily if the country has rigorous and strong security measures in place. The visa process, for instance is tighter in most countries to filter out any potential threat elements. The airport screening is a ‘necessary evil’ to ensure passengers don’t carry restricted harmful items or anything that can compromise the safety and security of the people and the nation.

Stay with me here now. Let’s draw parallels and analyze. The country we talk about here is your organization. The critical infrastructure we talk about is the organization’s IT systems which forms the heart of an enterprise. The assets we talk about are the organization’s confidential customer records and other sensitive information. The citizens we talk about are the employees of your organization who also have the right to be privileged members. And finally you the tourist, is a 3rdparty vendor or contractor. So do you see the connection here? As a 3rd party vendor or contractor, you are given certain privileged access rights to access the organization to facilitate with your work. These rights can be misused either due to lack of awareness or with the intention to attack, just like how you can roam around anywhere and do whatever you want as a tourist. An employee who has privileged access also can either unknowingly harm the critical assets of the organization because of his privileged rights or use these rights to his/her advantage to intentionally harm the organization. And this is where an additional security layer like a Privileged Identity Management solution suite comes into picture. This security layer is possibly a more sophisticated and comprehensive measure of internal security from an enterprise perspective. It controls and monitors each and every privileged user’s access rights regardless of the level of privilege.

Let me sign off here by saying that Privileged Identity Management solution suite is your organization’s necessary evil, it is your organization’s Dark Knight.

ARCON provides state-of-the-art technology aimed at mitigating information systems related risks thereby enabling organizations to comply with Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) requirements. The company, in particular, is known for its unique Privileged Identity Management/Privileged Access Management solution, which helps deter the misuse of ‘privileged identities’.

Learn more about us at www.arconnet.com