How to Plant the Right Cybersecurity Seeds to Create Opportunities in IoT

We can’t deny the fact that incorporating cybersecurity best practices in developing IoT systems is swiftly becoming the need of the hour. And businesses must put their best foot forward since customer engagement and trust begin with the assurance of information security. 

But the question is, what additional steps must every IoT vendor and developer take to reinforce security and build trust since everyone already has its own security mechanisms?

Here’s where the typical role of cutting-edge authentication and authorization security comes into play! 

Let’s uncover the aspects of incorporating the latest security to discover a plethora of opportunities in the IoT landscape with a foundation of trust and reliability. 

Secure Access Management - The Giant Leap 

When we talk about access management in the IoT landscape, we’re not just considering humans that access resources, networks, or devices, but machines and remote PCs. 

Secure access control for humans and machines is undeniably the cornerstone of developing secure IoT experiences. And developers and vendors shouldn’t ignore its importance. 

IoT networks are giant; machines have to communicate with each other several times every second. And a slight loophole in authentication and authorization mechanism in machine-level communication can be fatal. 

While human access control could be ensured through multi-factor authentication, machine-to-machine access control must be incorporated into the IoT systems to ensure robust security. 

With machine-to-machine authentication and authorization, IoT vendors and developers can ensure the highest level of security for their sensitive business information and customer data, which is being collected every second. 

Currently, many vendors aren’t leveraging the true potential of machine-to-machine authentication, which can be pretty risky pertaining to information security and user trust perspective. 

An IoT vendor or manufacturer compromising crucial information about users would always lag behind its competitors since users are always looking for devices and applications that are trustable and reliable. 

Hence, businesses lose every chance of staying ahead of the curve if they aren’t utilizing adequate authentication and authorization mechanisms, including machine-to-machine authentication. 

Moving Beyond the Conventional Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication is a great way to ensure the right people have access to networks, devices, and applications, but the mechanism seems impotent in high-risk situations. 

With increasing cybersecurity threats and hackers exploring new ways to exploit customer information, IoT developers need to think outside the box and shouldn’t just rely on multi-factor authentication. 

Here’s where the unmatched role of risk-based authentication (RBA) / adaptive authentication comes into play!

RBA/adaptive authentication analyzes specific parameters and automatically adds another authentication layer whenever something suspicious is detected. 

For instance, if a cybercriminal tries to access an account, network, or device from a new location or device, the RBA mechanism kicks in and adds one more authentication layer. 

The problem with the conventional multi-factor authentication in the IoT environment is that it cannot analyze and respond to threats at a higher level. And this issue could be rectified with risk-based authentication. 

Hence, businesses can ensure that their customer identities, sensitive data, and other crucial business information aren’t compromised, even if one or two layers of authentication have been compromised.

Once businesses build trust by offering stringent IoT security, the next step is to promote the same to generate leads and convert potential customers based on trust. 

Building Trust Through Regular Updates

Deploying a security mechanism is one thing, and updating it regularly to ensure it works for future threats is another. 

IoT vendors and developers are concerned about the overall security of users and critical business data, and they have already deployed several security features that aid seamless and secure authentication. But the problem is, they always forget to update them! 

Regular firmware updates help ensure that applications, devices, and networks are shielded against new threats that may compromise business information and sensitive customer data. 

Moreover, these regular updates also portray that businesses are concerned about user privacy and security, which further helps build brand loyalty and trust. 

Users get attracted to vendors offering robust security since they have already established their name in the market. On the other hand, those that compromise security and sensitive user information face reputational damages. 

In Conclusion 

With the changing IoT landscape, security has become the most crucial aspect for IoT vendors, developers, and marketers. 

If IoT devices and applications aren’t offering adequate security, users will switch to competitors since no one would ever wish to compromise their details. 

Adding stringent security layers in the overall authentication and authorization mechanism for both users and machines could be the best way to build trust and ensure the highest level of security in the IoT landscape.