NIST IoT Cybersecurity and Privacy Risk Report: Overview and Remarks

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the Considerations for Managing Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity and Privacy Risks Report.

NIST IoT report (find the full document here) aims to help federal agencies and other organizations manage the cybersecurity and privacy risks associated with individual IoT devices.

This NIST IoT report identifies three high-level considerations that may affect the management of cybersecurity and privacy risks for IoT devices as compared to conventional IT devices:

• Device Interactions with the Physical World– Many IoT devices interact with the physical world in ways conventional IT devices usually do not systems and thus affecting the physical world needs to be explicitly recognized and addressed from cybersecurity and privacy perspectives.
• Device Access, Management, and Monitoring Features :Many IoT devices cannot be accessed, managed, or monitored in the same ways conventional IT devices can. These difficulties become even more acute given the vast scale of IoT deployments, and given that many IoT devices do not support standardized mechanisms for centralized management and vary considerably in terms of software, firmware, standard and real-time operating systems, and applications. This significantly complicates software management throughout the IoT device lifecycle, affecting such areas as configuration and patch management.
• Cybersecurity and Privacy Capability Availability, Efficiency, and Effectiveness The availability, efficiency, and effectiveness of cybersecurity and privacy capabilities are often different for IoT devices than conventional IT devices. This means organizations may have to select, implement, and manage additional controls, as well as determine.

Identifying IoT Security and Privacy Risks

IoT Security solutions should address three high-level risk mitigation goals:

1. Protect device security. At the most basic level, an organization is required to prevent a device from being used to conduct attacks, including participating in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against other organizations, and eavesdropping on network traffic or compromising other devices on the same network segment.
2. Protect data security. Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and/or availability of data (including personally identifiable information [PII]) collected by, stored on, processed by, or transmitted to or from the IoT device.
3. Protect individuals’ privacy. Protect individuals’ privacy impacted by PII processing beyond risks managed through device and data security protection. This goal applies to all IoT devices that process PII or that directly or indirectly impact individuals.

Addressing IoT Security and Privacy Risks

To address these risk-mitigation goals, organizations will be required to:

1. Understand the IoT device (cybersecurity and privacy) risk considerations.
2. Adjust organizational policies and processes to address the cybersecurity and privacy risk mitigation challenges throughout the IoT device lifecycle.
3. Implement updated mitigation practices and mechanisms for the organization’s IoT devices.

ShieldIoT solution was designed with these challenged and risk-mitigation requirements in mind, and helps organizations address the critical needs described by NIST.

ShieldIoT Solution Adheres to NIST Guidelines

ShieldIoT AI-based network anomaly detection solution analyzes device communications to identify the first signs of cyber-attacks and operational anomalies, thus mitigating the spread of botnets and subsequent DDoS attacks.

Deployed at the IoT network operator / service provider cloud, the agent-less solution is highly scalable, protecting massive multi-application IoT networks against various threats including malware, ransomware, communication hijacking, node takeover and replication, replay attacks, data falsification and many more, effectively mitigating data theft.

The ShieldIoT solution is highly Scalable, supporting multiple applications, networks and millions of devices worldwide, and providing a centralized policy configuration solution, with automatic security updates for any device or application.

Last but not least- the solution relies on Artificial Intelligence to handle the masses of data in an anonymized manner (only referring to metadata, such as device location, IP, operating patterns), hence the personal identifiable information (PII) stored on the devices is not exposed and the privacy of the end users is maintained.

To schedule a demo of ShieldIoT solution, contact us today