Common Devices That Can Be Attacked

The Internet of Things (IoT) encompasses many “smart” devices, such as WiFi capable refrigerators, printers, manufacturing robots, coffee makers, and countless other machines. The issue with these devices is that they can be hijacked by attackers to form slaved networks of compromised devices to carry out further attacks. Worse yet, many organizations don’t even realize just how many IoT devices they have on their networks, meaning that they have unprotected vulnerabilities that they aren’t aware of.

These unknown devices represent a massive opportunity to attackers and a massive risk for organizations.

To minimize the risk from IoT devices, a security audit should be performed that identifies all of the disparate assets on the network and the operating systems they’re running. This way, these IoT devices can be properly accounted for in the organization’s cybersecurity strategy. Such audits should be performed periodically to account for any new devices that may be added to the network over time.