The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an intrinsic part of our everyday lives but also has functions that reach far beyond our daily interactions, contributing significant development to a diverse range of industries from healthcare to agriculture, to commerce and finance, as well as supporting important environmental, social and government initiatives.
With this in mind, it is imperative that manufacturers and IoT solutions providers ensure that their devices are protected from concept to deployment and through to the end of their useful life, or potentially put these initiatives and technological developments at risk of severe disruption.
IoT security must be prioritized from the very beginning of this process, so manufacturers and solutions providers must factor secure device enrollment from the beginning too.
The Importance of Secure Device Enrollment
The risks of a breach in an IoT network can be catastrophic, not just for IoT innovators, but for any organization that relies on their use. IoT innovation in particular relies on connected devices at a significant scale at a rapid pace of deployment, often resulting in security being overlooked, which is sometimes amplified by complexity of diverse use case applications.
IoT at an industrial scale, or IoT that supports innovation, and new initiatives can be exceptionally vulnerable due to the size and complexity of their networks and device interoperability. This can put industries, ESG initiatives and critical infrastructure at risk if these vulnerabilities are exploited.
This impacts small to medium business operators as well as enterprise and industry leaders. While smaller businesses may not be operating highly scaled, complex networks, they may still rely on their devices for improving operational efficiency, on-premise security systems, inventory tracking and monitoring, and cost reduction. If these crucial systems are breached, at best it would result in reputational damage, but is more likely to result in operational disruptions, financial loss and legal repercussions. Furthermore, it is much more difficult for smaller businesses to absorb the losses that can be the result of an unmanaged network vulnerability.
The use cases for IoT applications are incredibly diverse and touch every facet of our lives, but these are just a few examples of how IoT is being applied at a large scale:
- Healthcare: IoT optimizes many aspects of healthcare like remote patient monitoring, which offers a greater standard of care for patients who are either unable to go to a healthcare facility to receive treatment or would gain considerable benefits of being treated and monitored at home. IoT devices are also used to track medical supplies and monitor inventories ensuring that hospitals and other healthcare facilities have all the medications and equipment that they need, and reduce waste. IoT devices have significantly improved surgical treatment and examination processes through connected devices, and support procedures with the use of robotics.
- Agriculture: While IoT enabled processes are resources and cost intensive to implement in small scale farming, the agricultural sector is currently experiencing a shift towards IoT optimized farming. This includes crop and livestock monitoring which informs farmers on their growth and health and allows them to make effective decisions on how to approach their development and even when to harvest. IoT also enables efficient weather forecasting to allow farmers to take necessary precautions to protect their produce and optimize irrigation and fertilization schedules, and even automates pest control.
- Manufacturing: IoT is used in manufacturing from the beginning of the production line to the very end of the supply chain. It is used to optimize productivity and prevent disruption through machine communication and data sharing, which includes monitoring production conditions like temperature. After products leave the manufacturing location it is also used to schedule shipments and prevent supply delays, informing handlers when a shipment is ready, as well as informing providers where shipments are and if there are delays.
- Commerce and Finance: As well as being used in point-of-sale machines like contactless devices, IoT is also used to transmit real-time data which is used to make informed decisions on investments and cash-management, as well as asset tracking also optimizes inventory monitoring and asset auditing. IoT devices are also used for fraud prevention through multi-factor authentication methods such as biometric scanning, as well as data generation and analytics to identify fraudulent behavior and anomalies more quickly and efficiently.
- Environment, Social and Government (ESG) Initiatives: IoT is a valuable asset when developing and testing ESG initiatives. For environmental initiatives IoT devices are crucial for gathering data around climate change, from harvesting data for adapting to climate changes in agriculture, climate resistant architecture, and developing green energy solutions, to monitoring crucial data for the preservation of ocean life and wild land animal populations. IoT is also utilized for data gathering to help improve energy consumption, building management and optimize transport. The data gathered by IoT devices is crucial in making necessities such as water and energy more accessible, efficient and affordable – IoT is a pivotal puzzle piece for reaching ESG goals.
While these are only a few examples of how IoT is being used, it demonstrates a fraction of how much could be at risk if network and device vulnerabilities are exploited and the importance of secure device enrollment.
If industry leaders fail to ensure the security of their networks and protect their IoT infrastructure, the consequences of an IoT related breach could go beyond fines and a loss of reputation, but compromise an entire ecosystem as a breach could travel down the IoT chain. When one network becomes is compromised, it has the potential to ripple outward and affect multiple businesses, industries and even affect us on an individual level.
Discover more about secure device enrollment in our datasheet
What to Consider When Implementing a Device Enrollment Platform
IoT solutions providers and manufacturers should consider key factors when implementing IoT enrollment solutions:
- Integration: Manufacturers and solutions providers should conduct an audit of their existing systems and create a plan for integration, ensuring that they are implementing a solution that complements their existing systems. Customizable integration is imperative when catering for unique IoT use cases.
- Flexibility and Security: Flexibility is important for device deployment in order to avoid disruptions and bottleneck issues. However, it should also not compromise on security, as this could cause further disruptions later on. Therefore manufacturers must consider a solution that is extensible, flexible, customizable and secure.
- Scalability: Scalability is particularly important for industrial-sized deployments. Manufacturers and providers must ensure that their chosen enrollment solution is equipped to handle their broad and unique requirements at scale.
- Access Management and Control: Security should always be a priority for IoT device identities. That is why any enrollment framework should include stringent enrollment authentication protocols, communication encryption and identity storage.
- Device Lifecycle Management: Manufacturers should create a framework for full automated lifecycle management from concept, to deployment, to decommissioning to ensure security by design and choose a solution with localized certificate provisioning and regular updates. This will reduce the risk of a device becoming compromised during its full lifecycle.
- Regulatory Compliance: Large-scale identity deployment has a broad variety of unique use-cases, and therefore an extensive variety of industry requirements. Any enrollment platform should adhere to and support regulatory standards, including industry specific regulations such as HIPAA
- Expert Support: Complex enrollment requires in-depth expertise and experience in unique use-cases for guidance for implementing pre-configured workflows and custom certificate templates to ensure that you are supported at every step.
Prioritize Security without Compromising on Efficiency
IoT security begins with secure enrollment. If IoT networks and devices are not protected from the very beginning of their lifecycle, starting with conception and design, the risk of a network being breached becomes far more prevalent and can result in disastrous consequences to broad, large-scale projects and initiatives from small-scale disruptions to compromising a whole ecosystem.
This is why manufacturers and solution providers must prioritize security in their IoT networks, implementing a secure framework and trusted enrollment solutions from the beginning. This way, industry leaders and initiative pioneers can continue their crucial operations without disruption and without having to worry about the risk to their systems and businesses.
GlobalSign’s Device Enrollment Platform, IoT Edge Enroll is extensible and secure, catering to diverse, large-scale use cases while still prioritizing security. A customizable framework ensures that your environment is unique to you to fulfill your requirements, ensuring efficient, uninterrupted deployment.
Contact us for scalable, flexible device enrollment to suit your unique requirements
