Palo Alto released their second annual The Connected Enterprise: Internet of Things (IoT) Security Report 2021. It showed that 86 percent of Middle East IT leaders (global average: 81 percent) agree that the shift to remote working during the pandemic has increased risk and vulnerability from unsecured IoT devices on their organization’s business networks.
While 93 percent of Middle East IT decision makers (global average: 85 percent) believe their organization’s approach to IoT security has to be improved, the poll also reveals that 91 percent of Middle East IT leaders agree. Despite the fact that 100% of Middle Eastern respondents have an IoT security strategy in place, remote workers are increasingly connecting difficult-to-secure personal IoT devices to corporate networks, opening up new opportunities for hackers to infiltrate organisations and launch ransomware attacks, data theft, and crypto jacking operations.
Haider Pasha, Senior Director and Chief Security Officer at Palo Alto Networks, Middle East and Africa (MEA) said: “As work-from-home models are being normalised amongst many organisations in the Middle East, it is important for security teams to have visibility into all of the IoT devices being connected on corporate networks. Organisations in the Middle East have great confidence in their visibility of the IoT devices connecting to their network totaling up to 82%, which is a big jump from last year’s 72%.”
“During the pandemic, organisations were forced to rapidly scale their remote work infrastructure to ensure business continuity. With employees working from home, having the right cybersecurity strategy in place became critical. According to our research, all the Middle East IT leaders who were surveyed have a specific IoT strategy in place, to help them manage their networks more efficiently. Pasha added. “It is crucial for organisations to follow IoT security best practices at all times, these include: having real-time visibility of devices on a network, monitoring them continuously to identify abnormal behaviour and segmenting IT and IoT devices on separate networks. Additionally, enterprises need to ensure that they are promoting cybersecurity awareness and educating their employees on security best practices on an ongoing basis, in order to maximise impact and minimise the chance for cyberattacks to take place, in both professional and/or personal environments”.
