IOT Security in Manufacturing: 4 Things Every CISO Should Know

“The global industrial sector is poised to undergo a fundamental structural change akin to the industrial revolution as we usher in the IoT. Equipment is becoming more digitized and more connected, establishing networks between machines, humans, and the Internet, leading to the creation of new ecosystems that enable higher productivity, better energy efficiency, and higher profitability. While we are still in the nascent stages of adoption, we believe the IoT opportunity for Industrials could amount to $2 trillion by 2020. The IoT has the potential to impact everything from new product opportunities, to shop floor optimization, to factory worker efficiency gains that will power topline and bottom-line gains.” —Goldman Sachs, The Internet of Things: The Next Mega-Trend

Smart manufacturing, sometimes referred to as Industry 4.0, heralds a new age of responsive supply networks and tailored products and services made possible by advanced technologies such as analytics, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials, augmented reality, and, most of all, IoT. Through the use of these and other interconnected technologies, Industry 4.0 strives to marry the digital world with physical action to enable better manufacturing through such concepts as the digital twin.

As Industry 4.0 connectivity continues to grow, the potential impacts may become broader and more significant. Yet many manufacturers are not prepared: A 2016 study from Deloitte and MAPI found that one-third of manufacturers have never performed any cyber risk assessments of the ICS operating on their factory floors.

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Closing the IoT Gap in Manufacturing

IoT devices are multifaceted devices comprised of many technologies, each contributing to the device’s unique attack surface and common software vulnerabilities. Manufacturing organizations need to partner with an IoT security company that can enumerate the main vulnerability classes and solve for those gaps.

Finite State believes organizations should be able to understand the implications and risk involved with deploying IoT devices across your network. Just as you provision employee computers and phones, so you know the baseline risk posed by these assets, you should be able to do the same with your IoT devices. Our platform provides a look inside IoT devices — as if they were any other endpoint on the network — and uncovers hidden firmware vulnerabilities, while proactively mitigating IoT risk.

In order for information security professionals in manufacturing firms to begin to mitigate the risks created by IoT devices, you need the ability to:

1. Detect and identify 100% of the devices on your network – across all of your segments;
2. Gain visibility down to the firmware level for unmanaged devices;
3. Explore tailored intelligence about the devices on your network; and
4. Generate risk reports and monitor alerts to support continuous risk management.

Finite State’s cybersecurity platform leverages its unique IoT device and firmware risk database to give unparalleled visibility into the exponentially growing number of IoT devices that now make up a significant percentage of most government networks. Just as important, Finite State delivers a proactive solution that leverages both defensive and responsive capabilities to defend the network, by detecting threats and employing decoys, “honey pots,” and other techniques to assess the risk, isolate the attack, and defend your network.

The manufacturing industry may just be getting started with IoT, but with Finite State, you can stay secure and protected along the way.