Cyber Threats Associated with IoT Tools Are Rapidly Increasing Amid the Pandemic

Cyber Threats Associated with IoT Tools Are Rapidly Increasing Amid the Pandemic

The threat actors are taking great advantage of this uncertain business ecosystem by targeting IoT tools as the world operating digitally.

Cyber attackers are making the most of the fast-paced digital era with more cyber-attacks around online tools. In this situation, cyber-attacks on IoT devices are on the rise, which is impacting the business landscape at an alarming rate.

With most organizations working remotely, poor security protections are inevitable. As a result, the malicious actors are increasingly using automated solutions in order to exploit such widely available technology vulnerabilities.

A recent research study by Nokia revealed IoT devices are most infected since the pandemic began. The internet-connected devices, simply the IoT solutions account for almost 33% of all the infected technology and devices. This is up by 16% from the data points in 2019.

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The findings of the study are based on the data aggregated from observing the wide network traffic on more than 150 million devices. The rapid adoption of IoT devices, drones, medical devices, smart home security monitoring systems has been projected to increase rapidly.

Today, more businesses and consumers are aiming to take advantage of these ultra-low latencies, fundamentally innovative, and high bandwidth networking capabilities, enabled by 5G connectivity.

However, the success rate in infecting IoT solutions is dependent on the visibility of such tools to the internet. In networks where the solutions are frequently assigned public-facing IP addresses, a high infection rate is found.

In the case of technology systems where carrier-grade Network Address Translation is in an application, the security infection rate is potentially less. This is indeed due to the fact that vulnerable tools are not detectable upon the network scanning.

As explained by Bhaskar Gorti, Chief Digital Officer and President at Nokia – “The sweeping changes that are taking place in the 5G ecosystem, with even more 5G networks being deployed around the world as we move to 2021, open ample opportunities for malicious actors to take advantage of vulnerabilities in IoT devices.”

Without a doubt, the malicious actors are taking advantage of this evolving, uncertain marketplace – as they see it as the prime time to endorse their agendas. They are using the pandemic era to take control of consumer data with the help of various types of malware.

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Attackers even hack applications to plant malware into the computers of victims to exploit their personal data. In this context, the security researchers suggest users to install apps only from the trusted and verified application stores like App Store or Play Store.

Clearly, there is a critical demand for businesses as well as individuals to level up their security measures and practices in the devices in use. This is also valid for IoT device producers to stay unaffected and keep running as per the business objectives.

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