IT Pros Worried About IoT But Not Prepared to Secure It

Some 85% of IT professionals believe their country will suffer a major critical infrastructure cyberattack in the next five years and 64% say they're more concerned this year than last about connected device threats in their organizations - and slightly fewer are actually doing anything about Internet of Things security.

The 2018 Internet of Evil Things Report, sponsored by Pwnie Express, surveyed more than 700 IT professionals who took the online survey via SurveyMonkey. Those responding have felt the effects of cybercrime, with more than 60% saying that their organization was hit by malware last year.

When it comes to future worries, 80% listed connected devices, from industrial control to employee wearables, as their major source of concern. But less than half say that they have technology in place to monitor and secure them. "Security has been traditional devices in traditional implementations, though BYOD stretched it a bit. But now, things that might have been air-gapped are being exposed to the Internet," says Todd DeSisto, CEO of Pwnie Express.

"It's a non-traditional solution stack. It's not one hardware or software company; there aren't standards, there are proprietary protocols, and the life-cycles are much different," DeSisto explains, noting that many devices may be in place for decades rather than the three- to five years of a usual IT replacement cycle. And when the time for replacement rolls around, almost two-thirds of security professionals are often left out of the process.

"That doesn't make sense," he says.

Indeed, according to the report, 75% of organizations have a security policy in place for purchasing traditional IT devices, and nearly half have some sort of policy governing BYOD for the enterprise. When it comes to IoT devices, though, that number drops to one-third or less, depending on the nature of the connected device.

The responsibility for the security of all these devices falls squarely on the shoulders of IT security, according to the respondents, with 61% saying that the burden rests with professionals like themselves. Only 13% say that it should be up to manufacturers to make sure that the devices they design and sell should be secure from vulnerability to attack.