Food Industry Unplugged

IoT food safety devices are just as vulnerable to hackers as consumer devices. That’s why manufacturers need to worry about are cyber criminals—hackers who try to shut down your company, steal classified information, or just cause havoc to operations. A big problem is that many IoT devices were designed for convenience, not security, so many are sans the safeguards that would make a company’s IT leader feel safe. A company needs to really evaluate its systems and see what sort of risks there are.

Russel C. Van Tuyl, security analyst at Sword & Shield Enterprise Security, says some of the security issues an organization should be concerned about when implementing IoT or Operations Technology include insecure wireless communications, data transport over an unencrypted communication channel, firmware/application updates, proper segmentation, and weak or hardcoded passwords.

“Physical security of the device is also an important factor to consider,” he says. “These are common vulnerabilities that create risk which impacts confidentiality, integrity, and availability of devices and subsequently the business.”

A sound IoT security program consists of policies and technical controls that fit with a business and that correctly implement publicly vetted and supported frameworks, such as the Center for Internet Security Critical Security Controls—a prioritized set of cyber practices created to stop today’s most pervasive and dangerous cyberattacks.