Risk and concern around connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices continues to grow, and it seems information security professionals are not ready or equipped to keep malicious actors out of the enterprise.
A report out from threat detection solution Pwnie Express (The Internet of Evil Things: Top Connected Device Threats 2016) reveals that thanks to the increasing number of new entry points, vulnerability is an issue.
86 percent of InfoSec professionals, according to the survey/report, are concerned with connected device threats, with 50 percent either "Very" or "Extremely Concerned." The majority of InfoSec professionals (67 percent) are more worried about connected device threats than they were a year ago, with first-hand experience driving heightened concern. In fact, 55 percent of those surveyed have witnessed an attack via wireless device, and 38 percent have witnessed an attack via mobile device.
"As the IoT universe continues to grow, the corresponding attack surface for malicious actors is growing, giving them an easy and unsecured way into your organization's most sensitive information -- and this has understandably put information security professionals on edge," said Paul Paget, CEO, Pwnie Express. "Yet, despite ever-growing concerns around the proliferation of connected devices on and around their networks, more than one-third of organizations admit to having no BYOD policy in place at all and only 24 percent actually have a budget in place for BYOD security technology. This tells us that security professionals desperately need help educating the corner office and those in charge of the purse strings about the new evils and dangers their organizations face in our ever-evolving IoT world."
The research and development division at Pwnie Express, dubbed Pwnie Labs, analyzed 7 million wireless and wired devices detected by its SaaS-based Pwn Pulse platform, which offer device visibility of connected devices on and around enterprise networks.
