Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is booming, and industrial cybersecurity is growing right alongside it. This is good news, because IoT networks are often targets for malicious intruders who want to gain access to all of the sensitive data passed from device to device within a successful business.
Though many businesses do understand the importance of improved industrial IoT cybersecurity, other businesses may not think that security threats are enough of a pressing issue to warrant a major overhaul of their cybersecurity infrastructure.
Read on to learn why this could be a grave mistake.
Inadequate industrial IoT cybersecurity can have devastating consequences
When most people think of a cyber attack, they picture business plans being leaked to competitors, employee information doxxed online, or a virus that cripples their system for a short time until everything can be wiped and backups restored.
When considering upgrading security, many business leaders have to weigh the time and effort necessary to make major improvements with the risk of things such as:
- Loss or theft of important data
- Unplanned system downtime
- Loss of revenue or increased costs
- Ongoing issues such as malfunctioning devices or unauthorized connections
- Inaccurate sensors and disruption of automated systems
Unfortunately, the risks don’t stop there. In some industries, cyber attacks could bring down an entire business and even have life or death consequences, especially if tampering goes unnoticed for too long.
Imagine a water treatment plant that uses sensors to measure water quality. A malicious actor could alter the sensor data and cause the water supply to be distributed even if some toxins are at dangerous levels. Not only would consumer confidence plummet for years to come, but innocent people could get sick or die as a result of the tampering. Extend this scenario to cover all of the things that could be done to an unsecure hospital network or manufacturing plant, and you can easily understand why improved industrial IoT cybersecurity is so critical.
Cybersecurity measures businesses could take to boost protection
For starters, you should employ multi-factor authentication whenever possible. You can then have reasonable confidence that everyone accessing your system is who they say they are. But to be effective, you must apply that security to each and every device connected to your IoT network. Some of these include security cameras, remote meters, and personal employee devices that can hop on and off of your company’s network.
End-to-end encryption can also help keep your system safe. If an unauthorized user can’t intercept data in transit between two secured devices, it becomes much more difficult for that person to walk away with sensitive information.
When in doubt, don’t risk going unprotected. Contact the expert team at Software Design Solutions to make sure any IoT project you deploy is safe and secure.
