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Originally published on TechTarget Security. Alvaka’s COO and CISO—Kevin McDonald—talks about IOT cybersecurity challenges and the debate of accountability for the poor manufacturing, implementation and management.
IoT technologies offer a plethora of benefits and opportunities that are just beginning to be realized. Organizations of all shapes and sizes — from manufacturing to healthcare to automotive and more — can collect real-time data to monitor and control their surroundings and power smart cities, factories, buildings, campuses and homes.
These benefits and opportunities, however, can only be truly enjoyed if the devices are properly secured, deployed and configured. Unfortunately, with anything as powerful, new and ubiquitous as IoT, significant risks to safety, security and privacy are all too real.
Historically, securing the few million industrial control devices deployed across utilities and industries was a struggle — and this was long before they became internet-connected. Now, by some accounts, billions of potentially insecure IoT devices will need to be dealt with in more verticals than ever before. Industrial control engineers and manufacturers of yesteryear may get a pass for mistakes made decades before the advent of industrial control internet connectivity, but the engineers and manufacturers designing today’s IoT devices without keeping security in mind can’t be excused — and neither can the end users and enterprises deploying them.
From connected cameras being enlisted in bot armies that deliver devastating distributed denial-of-service attacks to a smart fish tank being the gateway to hacking a casino, the challenges of securing IoT are compounding. Add in lower costs, and increasingly, simplistic deployment and security issues abound. Cheaply made, poorly designed and configured, rushed-to-market devices sold with too much capability and little or no security threaten enterprises, industrial organizations and governments. The major question becomes: Just whose responsibility is IoT security, anyway?…
Click here to read the full article on TechTarget.
Blog written by Kevin McDonald, COO & CISO – Alvaka Networks
Kevin B. McDonald is the chief operating officer and chief information security officer at Alvaka Networks. Kevin is a trusted technology and security practitioner and public policy advisor to some of America’s most influential people and organizations. He advises corporate executives, federal and state legislators, law enforcement, high net worth individuals and other business leaders. He is a sought after consultant, writer, presenter and trainer on the issues surrounding personal, physical and cyber security, compliance and advanced technology. Kevin has written for and been interviewed by dozens of national publications and on major television, radio and digital outlets.
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Smoke testing is a type of software testing performed by Alvaka after a software patching sequence to ensure that the system is working correctly and to identify any misconfigurations or conflicts within the patched system.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.
You want to enter in a fully burdened labor rate for this field. What that means is that you want to take the base hourly rate, plus 25-30% for employer payroll taxes, benefits, vacation/holiday time, etc.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied.