Cybersecurity is a leading concern for businesses worldwide. As a cybersecurity company in Miami, we’re seeing many companies diving headfirst into the Internet of Things (IoT).
With billions of devices connected to the IoT and rising, it’s no wonder that there were 1.5 billion attacks on these devices in the first six months of 2021. Protecting against these threats takes a multi-faceted approach.
5 Cybersecurity Best Practices to Secure IoT Devices
1. Multi-Factor Authentication
Users often choose outdated, easy or similar passwords to what they use on different platforms. When passwords are easy to break, it opens a massive security hole for your entire company.
Instead, you should follow the best practices for password security and add multi-factor authentication to devices and systems.
Multi-factor authentication will:
- Lower the risk of hacks
- Strengthen against weak password usage
- Prevent brute force attacks
If you use multi-factor authentication solutions, it’s possible to prevent many threats at once.
2. Strong Patch and Update Policies
The biggest security risk is often human error and lack of update and patch policies. If you don’t have procedures in place, you risk allowing zero-day threats to open up IoT to breaches. So whether you’re a home user or a Fortune 500 company, creating patch and update policies is a good idea.
Your policy should answer the following questions:
- Who is responsible for the updates?
- When will patches be rolled out?
- What devices or systems must be patched first?
If possible, place malware and antivirus solutions on a central, connected workstation. When you follow this setup, you’re making it easy to update one system to enhance your IoT security.
3. Risk Mitigation Planning
Security risks will always exist, but mitigating these risks is one way to stop an infiltration in its tracks. The idea is to lower your risks by following your plan as best you can. The plan should include:
- Run a risk assessment to find weak spots in your security
- Build out an incident response plan
- Monitor network traffic
Risk mitigation planning includes many basics listed previously, such as strong password enforcement, firewall and antivirus software usage, etc.
4. Monitoring for Intrusion
Intrusion monitoring is one of the best security methods that you can follow. You can do virtually everything right, but it may not be enough to prevent all cyber-attacks. Monitoring allows you to:
- Identify points of intrusion
- React to intrusion rapidly
- Monitor suspicious activity
Monitoring allows you to take immediate action if a breach of any kind occurs. If you’re not monitoring your network, you’re opening the doors to threats that can quickly damage your reputation, cost you to lose revenue and lead to significant fines.
5. Segment Workstations When Possible
Private, secure workstations must be segmented from public workstations. Segmentation is crucial, when possible, to prevent any unauthorized access to networks that devices reside on. When you don’t allow public and private servers to interact with each other, it’s a strong protection against cybersecurity threats.
If you’re looking for a cybersecurity company in Miami, give us a call to learn how we can help protect your data from cyberattacks and threats.