IoT devices need a security platform just like everyone else

Sep 1, 2015 14:17 GMT  ·  By

Webroot, a company that provides cyber-security products for end users and businesses of various sizes, has launched one of the first full security toolkits for the Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

This new offering is called the Webroot IoT Cybersecurity Toolkit (WST) and is aimed at industrial clients, large businesses that build IoT systems that span different domains and have different penetration levels in the life of regular consumers.

With more security experts taking aim at IoT technology, their white hat research papers are bound to be integrated into future exploit kits and attack strategies.

As the Webroot team describes, the IoT Cybersecurity Toolkit is made up of three distinct parts: Agents, Threat Intelligence Services, and Secure Web Gateways.

Agents, as detailed by Webroot, are active on the IoT device level, and work by checking local filesystems for new entries and altered files.

A combination between device-level agents and cloud-based services

Information collected by these agents is then sent to the Webroot Brightcloud Threat Intelligence Platform, a cloud-based service that aggregates and looks for anomalies.

WST Agents are available for IoT systems running on Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows.

The second component, the Threat Intelligence Services, works on the level above IoT devices, meaning IoT gateways, and can be used to prevent inbound attacks from reaching the user's devices, but can also be used to prevent data exfiltration in case of successful attacks.

The final Secure Web Gateways component is a cloud-level service, which can be employed for monitoring and filtering traffic between devices and control centers, but also for intercepting malware before reaching the previous two levels.

With the proliferation of smart devices, the Internet of Things will slowly creep into the everyday life of all users across the planet, and more and more security firms will start addressing the IoT platform with other similar security products.

How things work in the Webroot IoT Cybersecurity Toolkit
How things work in the Webroot IoT Cybersecurity Toolkit

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The IoT receives one of its first security platforms
How things work in the Webroot IoT Cybersecurity Toolkit
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