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Fixing IoT Security: Dark Reading Radio Wednesday at 1 P.M. ET
Join us for a conversation about what is being done and what needs to be done to secure the Internet of Things.
Last week, the FBI was inspired to issue a public service announcement warning that the Internet of Things poses opportunities for cybercrime. The PSA included practical advice about passwords, and querulous philosophical challenges like "Consider whether IoT devices are ideal for their intended purpose."
Who can blame the Feds for being nervous? There are already 3.9 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the world today, and Gartner estimates that by 2020 there will be 25 billion of them -- inside our public infrastructure, our homes, our cars, even our bodies… and all full of vulnerabilities.
Today, the IoT Village, which debuted last month at DEF CON, announced that through its hacking contest and workshops, 60 zero-day vulnerabilities have already been discovered in a variety of IoT devices. The list includes bugs in satellite receivers, motion sensors, and baby monitors, a remote code execution attack that can bring a Parrot drone crashing to the ground, and even a man-in-the-middle attack on a Samsung Smart Refrigerator that could jeopardize a hungry fridge owner's email account and any account associated with that email address.
Industrial manufacturing behemoth GE is using a new ad campaign to convince us that it's a "digital company" now too, but the truth is, manufacturers of IoT devices are relatively new to the business of writing code and unprepared for the brave new world they’re creating.
What can the infosec community do to help solve the problem, other than just find fault? We're devoting the next episode of Dark Reading Radio to that question.
We'll tackle the topic from both sides -- with guests who approach the topic from an IT security background and guests who approach it from the device manufacturer / embedded systems background.
I'll be your host. Joining me will be:
Haydn Povey, CEO and founder of Secure Thingz, a start-up that spun out of microprocessor technology giant ARM, and member of the executive steering board for the new IoTSF.
Ruben Santamarta, principal security consultant for IOActive, who's been a leader in research on vulnerabilities in satellite technology. IOActive has been at the forefront of research into car hacking,smart cities security, cyber-physical hacking, and other IoT-related security issues.
Dark Reading's own Marilyn Cohodas, reporting from Boston at the inaugural IoT Security event.
Have questions you want us to address? Let us know in the comments below or hop into the live chat during our radio broadcast of "Fixing IoT Security," next Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Register now.
Sara Peters is Senior Editor at Dark Reading and formerly the editor-in-chief of Enterprise Efficiency. Prior that she was senior editor for the Computer Security Institute, writing and speaking about virtualization, identity management, cybersecurity law, and a myriad ... View Full Bio
Austin Milbarge, User Rank: Apprentice 9/23/2015 | 9:35:16 AM
couple of questions
It's awesome that folks in IT security are making such a great effort to work with the various IoT companies etc as it's a Pandora's Box that needs to be addressed.
That said....
Q1 - I'm curious though if there are any initiatives in the works to work with these IoT companies when it comes to interacting with security researchers (outside said company/ies), their response and reaction to bugs, exploits, zero days etc that are brought to their attention especially in good faith.
And
Q2 - Once informed, how to categorize and address the disclosed issue within the company. Is it a "stop everything and get this fixed asap" issue because said company may have early beta equipment in-use in the wild (customers) and may feel the issue is enough of a threat to apply most of their resources to fixing said issue (at least those resources necessary to address the issue) even if it means taking those resources away from their current work (perhaps in the midst of meeting a deadline?) I realize it's all contextual and we could all come up with 100 different scenarios but it should be noted that a lot of start-ups are going to be riding a fine line with deadlines, money, perception etc and likely won't be able to weather a misstep quite as well as the larger more established companies.
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