IoT security solutions are the intersection of enterprise mobility management (EMM) and endpoint detection and reaction (EDR). It meets the demands of an expanding edge computing network. IoT is another attack vector that organizations aren’t prepared for as the enterprise attack surface increases.
Internet of Things devices is smart consumers and business systems that power the future homes, factories, and enterprise processes. The number of IoT devices installed will exceed 35 billion by year-end and reach 55 Billion by 2025.
Enterprises recognize the need to invest in device management capabilities and endpoint security. In 2016, IoT security solutions were worth $91 million. This number has risen to $631 million five years later. The growth of IoT segments such as industrial IoT and the Internet of Medical Things, (IoMT), has meant that IoT security will be vital to business continuity, vulnerability, and threat management.
This article examines the most popular IoT security options, current commercial features, and associated risks. It also discusses considerations when choosing IoT security solutions.
Top IoT Security Vendors and Solutions
1. Armis
Armis Security was founded in 2015 and specializes in providing IoT security that is agentless for today’s enterprise infrastructure. Armis Platform provides behavioral analysis for billions of devices. This information is used to inform Armis Device Knowledgebase. It monitors IoT device traffic and alerts administrators.
Armis Standard Query allows operators to search for vulnerabilities, services, and policies that can be used to investigate managed and unmanaged devices and applications. Armis Asset Management, the vendor’s solution that provides visibility across hybrid infrastructure devices and their risks, is becoming increasingly important as enterprises take on IoT deployment risks.
Armis’ solutions include cybersecurity asset management, OT security assessment, ICS risk assessment, and zero trust. Insight Partners purchased Armis in January 2020 for $1 billion. It joined Insight’s other cybersecurity companies like SentinelOne and Perimeter81 as well as Tenable.
Armis Features
- For seamless integration into existing infrastructure, agentless passive monitoring allows for seamless integration
- Contextual details about the device, such as model, IP/MAC address, and OS, are robust, including username
- Threat intelligence RSS feeds that offer detection and response capabilities
- Monitoring of a variety of devices, including IoT and industrial, as well as apps and cloud
- Built-in playbooks to provide manual and automated responses to policy violations
2. Broadcom Symantec
Broadcom Symantec is a leader in IoT security, thanks to its network infrastructure and cybersecurity skills. Symantec’s Integrated Cyber Defense security packages ( XDR and SASE) provide all the tools necessary for monitoring and security of IoT devices.
Broadcom offers a microcontroller location hub and a System-on-a-Chip (SoC), system for embedded IoT security to organizations that handle product manufacturing. Symantec ICS protection provides organizations with advanced ML and threat intelligence, as well as an enforcement driver. Symantec CSP also offers application permit listing and system hardening.
Broadcom Features
- Embedded IoT security to manage seamless over-the-air (OTA) management
- An analytics engine that can process millions of IoT events.
- Support for managed and unmanaged devices in hybrid infrastructures
- Monitor IoT vendors in the cloud, APIs and apps, devices, and networks
- Endpoint policies and provisioning informed by global threat intelligence
3. Cisco
Cisco, an enterprise networking vendor, made a major step towards the future of industrial security in 2019 with the acquisition by Sentryo, a French IoT company. With the acquisition of Sentryo, a French IoT company, Cisco has created a synergy that provides optimal visibility into ICS networks using an adaptive edge monitoring architecture and Cisco IoT solutions, and an existing security system. The Cisco IoT Threat Defence includes Cyber Vision as well as firewalls and identity service engines (ISE), secure endpoints, and Soar.
Cisco’s industrial defense strategy assists organizations in assessing risk and identifying relationships between systems. It also allows them to deploy micro-segmentation under the name of zero trust. Security managers gain the context they need to understand OT and IoT security events in order to maximize existing policies. Forrester’s Wave for ICS Security Solutions, released in Q4 2021, placed Cisco at the top of the ICS/OT security market.
Cisco Features
- Real-time visibility of industrial assets, communication patterns, and app flows
- Integration seamless with SOC platforms, SIEM, and SOAR systems
- Alerts for software and hardware vulnerability detection and response
- It can be deployed as embedded equipment or an out-of-band SPAN collection system.
- Deep packet inspection (DPI) for understanding context around behavior
4. Cradlepoint
Cradlepoint, which has been a leading WAN, edge network, and cloud solution provider, has grown to be Ericsson’s September 2020 acquisition for $1.1 billion. The IoT solution, which is located in Boise, Idaho, is part of Ericsson’s NetCloud Service. It offers LTE and 5G-compatible wireless routers, as well as a web-based platform for managing edge traffic and IoT services. These are internet of things leading companies.
NetCloud for IoT provides remote management, dynamic routing protocols, and zone-based firewalls. It also offers extensibility to secure edge environments. Cradlepoint can be used with many IoT devices including smart buildings, medical equipment, kiosks, and digital signage.
Cradlepoint net cloud for IoT Features
- A dashboard that provides visibility into accounts, groups, and devices. Also, allows for usage and analytics.
- Connection manager that offers WAN optimization, failover, and load balancing
- Routing capabilities for policy and static routes, traffic steering, and IP verification
- Support for IPv4/IPv6 Quality of Service (QoS) and IP Passthrough Mode
- Advanced tools such as in-band or out-of-band management, and map locations
5. Entrust
Entrust has over 50 years of experience in distributed technology solutions and is a market leader for certificate issuance, ID management, and digital security systems that are trusted worldwide by banks, governments, and enterprises. Entrust IoT Security is reliant on the vendor’s industry-recognized Public Key Infrastructure solution (PKI). Entrust PKI offers Certificate Hub to provide granular control over digital certificates, Managed PKI Services for outsourcing certificate issuance, the management, or Entelligence Security Provider to automate enterprise ID management. Entrust can protect sensitive transactions that are essential for the business continuity of industrial and commercial organizations using IoT devices.
Entrust offers a wide range of device management services, but its edge products include IoT Identity Issuance (IoT Identity Management) and IoT Identity Issuance (complementary). These agent-based solutions are able to quickly onboard new IoT products and devices, configure them and facilitate secure communication between users, apps, and appliances.
Entrust Features
- A user-friendly portal to manage certificates remotely
- Access to key history, backups, recovery configurations and more
- Automated updates and upgrades that meet the most recent security requirements.
- Compatibility with top enterprise mobility management (EMM), solutions
- Managed identity security including encryption and digital signatures. authentication
6. Forescout
Forescout, twenty years after its inception, is a leader in the monitoring, analysis, and security of the IoT/OT systems, commonly referred to as the Enterprise of Things. Forescout’s IoT Security Solution recognizes the importance of zero trust principles. It works to create micro-perimeters that are specific for network segments, obfuscation techniques, and granular user privileges.
The vendor, based in San Jose, can help to manage risk across hybrid infrastructure. This includes unmanaged services and all IP-connected devices. The vendor’s progress is evident in the fact that Forescout was purchased last year by a private equity company at $1.9 billion.
Forescout IoT Safety Features
- Provision of IoT devices per network segment using dynamic, behavior-based policies
- Agentless monitoring that detects all IP-connected devices, physical and virtual
- Access to the Forescout Device Cloud, which contains over 12,000,000 device risk profiles
- Real-time access to all-IP-connected physical and virtual machines
- Replication automation database (CMDB)
7. Fortinet
FortiGuard IoT Service by Fortinet addresses the latest frontier in cybersecurity. FortiGuard IoT can process 1.2 billion queries per day from thousands of devices, both new and old. Fortinet’s approach to addressing edge risks is based on its existing security platform. It combines its next-generation firewall (FortiGate), and NAC (FortiNAC), in a lightweight SaaS product. LAN Edge allows organizations to implement their SDWAN strategy and bolster edge networks with LAN Edge.
FortiNAC, the vendor’s zero trust solution, provides agentless scanning, micro-segmentation and a variety of profiling methods to identify devices. Fortinet strongly believes in a fabric-based approach for IoT security to address the distributed threat posed IP-enabled devices pose to its customers.
Fortinet features
- Automated onboarding of apps, users and devices across the infrastructure
- Profiling of users and devices and denial for unsecured devices
- Compatible with 150 vendors that offer flexibility in network configurations
- Industry-leading NGFWs for physical, virtual, or cloud systems
- FortiGuard Labs provides access to threat intelligence and research
8. JFrog
JFrog is a well-known vendor when it comes to DevOps solutions. This has been true for nearly a decade. The acquisitions of Vdoo, Upswift, and other Israeli-American software companies over the summer have allowed JFrog to continuously update IoT device security and become a budding DevSecOps solution. JFrog provides visibility throughout application and service lifecycles. It can inform and automatically implement security strategies that address edge traffic.
The JFrog Platform is built on a universal binary repository. This repository records all dependencies and builds artifacts. It also manages details such as releases and management. IoT security platform provides high availability and seamless multisite replication to manage increasingly complex software deployments. JFrog provides software composition analysis (SCA), which is used to analyze third-party software. It can scan all major package types and provide a complete REST API that allows seamless integration into existing infrastructure.
JFrog Features
- Support for hybrid, on-premises, and cloud deployments
- You can configure artifact metadata to search by name, archive, or checksum.
- Scan and index package types such as Python, Docker, Python, and Nuget.
- Vulnerability intelligence is used to inform and alert about the existence of bugs.
- Support from JFrog Research & Development is available 24/7
9. Overwatch
Overwatch is a specialist in IoT security with its ThreatWatch solution. It protects increasing numbers of IoT devices from brute force attacks, server app vulnerabilities, as well as escalated access. The vendor is based in Little Switzerland, North Carolina. It was founded to address the era SD-WANs (and edge connectivity) and was launched in 2015. Threatwatch provides security management analytics to organizations for network devices, threat monitoring and resolution capabilities as well as a visual mapping of all active connections.
The Overwatch agent, a security monitoring solution deployed at the edge that communicates with the Threatwatch platform, provides administrators with real-time traffic analysis. Administrators can see active connections and take appropriate remediation actions such as device locking or rebooting.
Overwatch Features
- Simple web interface to centrally manage agents and devices
- A discreet, lightweight agent that is strong enough to resist exploits
- API to communicate real-time threat assessment, mitigation to device agents
- Administrative access to analytics and data storage.
- You can create IoT device security policies for the cluster using specific criteria
10. Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks is a global leader in cybersecurity and its IoT strategy is no exception. Palo Alto Networks’ Network Security vertical has a vendor that approaches edge management using the IoT Security lifecycle. Every organization must assess, assess, and mitigate IoT risk, detect known threats and respond to anomalies. PAN’s IoT security system includes EDR and ZTNA as well as vulnerability management, asset management, and NAC for end-to-end visibility.
Administrators can quickly resolve IoT security issues such as resource-intensive API-led Integrations and manual processes for ticket generation with the vendor’s playbooks. It’s difficult to match the monitoring, prevention, and response capabilities PAN offers in a single platform.
Palo Alto Networks Security Features
- Integrations pre-built for existing IT systems such as SIEM, NAC, and ITSM
- Machine Learning and Telemetry to aid in risk assessment and remediation
- Cloud-delivered security service that is lightweight and easy to deploy
- Implementation of NAC/NGFW for zero-trust infrastructure
- Enhanced investigation and threat response in IT, IoT, and OT devices
11. PTC
PTC has been a trusted provider of computer-aided designing (CAD) as well as product lifecycle management software (PLM). Nearly four decades after its founding, the vendor continues serving industrial needs with the most recent tech such as augmented reality (AR), and IIoT solutions. PTC offers ThingWorx Industrial IoT Solutions Platform, which can be used as a combination of tools or as standalone solutions to IoT security.
Organizations can connect securely to OT systems, equipment, and plants through Kepware and ThingWorx Kepware servers. Administrators can set firewall policies by assigning permissions and access based on user roles. PTC’s solutions offer the visibility and flexibility required to deploy and manage hybrid, on-premises, and cloud systems.
ThingWorx Features
- Remote asset monitoring, alerts, and analysis of traffic and system trends
- Developer tools and pre-built apps for IoT application deployment
- Real-time monitoring and management of performance
- Machine-to-machine M2M linking, logic, and communication functionality
- Reduce inefficiencies and risks associated with legacy industrial systems
12. Trustwave
Trustwave, based in Chicago, is a top managed security service provider (MSSP), with billions of security events recorded every day. The cybersecurity vendor is a globally recognized company with the ability to manage detection, response, security system, compliance, and applications.
Trustwave provides IoT security to manufacturers and implementers. The software and applications required to monitor embedded components and devices to increase hardware protection are available from the vendor. IoT security companies administer IoT monitoring services and managed security testing to validate embedded systems. IoT product testing can be conducted by both manufacturers and product developers, as well as incident response.
Trustwave Features
- Security testing to find vulnerabilities in apps, servers, IoT and the cloud
- Track and scan all IP-enabled devices to ensure access control
- A personalized approach to managing IoT systems in organizations and the associated data
- Operational resilience through automated and managed compliance
- Trustwave SpiderLabs provides access to experts in vulnerability, threat, exploit, and other areas of expertise
What are IoT Security Solutions?
IoT security solutions include embedded IoT security software and tools that monitor edge devices and help to detect and remediate threats. internet of things security solutions currently includes both standalone and bundle plans. These plans include tools such as encryption, IAM, and EMM to protect connected devices.
What is IoT Devices?
IoT refers to any device capable of communicating with one another, usually at a short-range, with few components other than its operational purpose, and often with unique identities. Many organizations have embedded security in a new generation of IoT devices. Other vendors offer agent-based software that monitors and protects IoT devices.
IoT devices can include all consumer smart systems, autonomous machinery, vehicles, office appliances, and many other healthcare devices.
Tips for Choosing IoT Security Solution
- How can the solution isolate IoT devices from access by critical segments?
- What tools and protocols are available to secure transactions? (TLS, encryption, Auth0)
- Is there an embedded internet of things security requirement to reduce exposure?
- What policy controls can administrators set up for users or devices that are not managed?
- Is the solution able to issue and manage secure credentials such as code signatures and PKI?
- Are solution operators able to identify, categorize and provide new devices?
- How can the solution build trust between devices? (e.g. key injection or HSMs).
IoT Security Solutions Features
- Network scanning device identification and discovery of active networks
- To identify and assess risk, you can identify users, data and devices, locations, and other information.
- Threat intelligence provides information about the state of malware and the patches available.
- Security gateways are used to isolate network segments from servers, ports, and IoT devices.
- Baseline responses to abnormal behavior in individuals or groups of devices
- For hybrid infrastructures, define and enforce policies for all access types and devices
- Automated configuration and threat response policies for IoT devices
- Management and issuance of certificates for access and security.
Security of IoT devices is an emerging cybersecurity sector. The above list does not include all vendors. There are many unique ways to address IoT security issues.
IoT Device Vulnerabilities and Risks
IoT devices such as sensors, doorbells, and printers can be compromised once they are isolated from the rest of the IT environment and other devices. Organizations can prevent an IoT device from becoming something else by using segmentation. However, this won’t stop threat agents from using it and other devices in a botnet attack.
There are also other risks associated with IoT device administration:
- Devices with insufficient data protection or security capabilities
- Inability to install additional security software
- Persistent threat: Unsecure interfaces readily accessible
- Poor password protection, default credentials remaining put
- Unreliable update or patch mechanism
- Inventory of IoT devices and monitoring of IoT traffic is not available or absent.
- There is a gap in IoT security management skills to protect edge systems
- Data silos are created by inefficient management of IoT systems and OT systems
Conclusion
IoT-specific security strategies will be required to secure the next generation IT environments due to the proliferation of IoT devices. Companies that are actively deploying IoT devices need to be cautious about security risks and take precautions.
Organizations must visualize IoT assets under their control, assess their risk and apply appropriate protections. They also need to monitor IoT traffic for potential threats. As with everything in cybersecurity, visibility informs strategy and action – making it easier to choose an IoT security solution.
