IoT Security
Article | October 11, 2023
Manufacturers were already digitizing their processes before March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic gave IT and operational professionals in the manufacturing space reasons to want to move faster. Teams that can’t work on the factory floor (pandemic, weather, closed roads, etc.) need a way to monitor and control processes over the network. Supply chain woes—like wildly fluctuating demand and the container ship that blocked the Suez Canal—highlighted the need for agility. A skilled labor shortage has further accelerated plans for automation.
Digitization brings visibility and agility
The fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, lays the foundation of modern digital manufacturing. It brings together cyber and physical systems, automation, industrial IoT, and better vertical and horizontal integration.
The network has a starring role in digital manufacturing, connecting people and applications in any location to factory-floor assets like sensors, actuators, cameras, and industrial automation and control systems (IACS). Benefits of digitization include improved overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) uptime, product quality, worker safety, cybersecurity, 24/7 asset monitoring and faster new product introduction and accelerating plant buildouts.
Four essentials for manufacturing networks
As IT and operational professionals work to innovate traditional manufacturing facilities and operations, we must consider that digital manufacturing requires more networks. Here are guidelines for making sure your manufacturing network is up to the task.
Use network devices specifically designed for industrial environments like factories
In addition to high performance and reliability, industrial routers, switches, and firewalls need to withstand harsh environmental conditions like extreme temperatures, shock, vibration, and humidity. They also need to be able to control access, have support for real-time industrial protocols, and enable the flow of key operational data to move across applications in the cloud. Further, the operational networks they build need to be scalable and highly resilient. We designed our industrial routers and switches to meet these requirements.
Give IT and OT visibility and control into what they care about
The manufacturing network is a joint project of the IT and OT teams. If you’re on the IT team, you want a solution that works with your existing network management and security applications, and doesn’t require significant training or disruption. You want to automate network maintenance and quickly identify and solve performance issues, especially in this business-critical space. If you’re on the OT team, you’re probably not an IT expert. You want visibility of issues that impact availability, product quality, workforce effectiveness and straightforward recommendations to resolve them. Cisco DNA Center – proven in the largest IT networks – meets all these needs. It automates time-consuming manual tasks, continuously monitors network health, and provides reports and controls on an easy-to-use dashboard. Cisco Cyber Vision gives you visibility into assets and processes.
For agile manufacturing, look for “plug-and-play” deployment
Manufacturers are simultaneously expanding production, hyper-customizing products, improving operations, and launching new products and services. To achieve these goals, you need the agility to scale product capacity, change product mix, and reallocate resources as needed. Quickly shift networking and production resources where you need them using Cisco DNA Center’s plug-and-play onboarding and provisioning.
Pay careful attention to cybersecurity
Cybersecurity starts with knowing everything that is connected to your industrial network, who’s talking to each other and what they are saying. Cisco Cyber Vision automatically takes a complete inventory. OT teams use a graphical interface to create production zones (aka network segments) containing all assets that need to communicate. (The painting controller doesn’t need to talk to the assembly-line controller.) Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) deploys polices that block unintended communications between segments to keep malware infections from spreading. Cisco Cyber Vision also takes a baseline of each asset’s usual communications patterns, alerting OT and IT teams to unusual behavior that could be a sign of a security breach.
Prepare to do more with less
The manufacturing skills shortage has widened the skills gap, with fewer experts left on the plant floor to prevent mistakes and solve crises. Connecting your plant floor helps you do more with less. A resilient network with the four qualities I’ve described—rugged devices, IT and OT collaboration, simpler and agile network management, and cybersecurity—helps you proactively identify potential problems, discover the cause, and resolve them before they affect production or quality.
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Enterprise Iot
Article | May 11, 2023
Introduction
Automation, interconnectivity, machine-learning, and real-time data are part of Industry 4.0, a new phase in the Industrial Revolution. Industry 4.0, which includes IIoT and smart manufacturing, combines physical production and operations with smart digital technologies. It creates a more holistic and linked environment for manufacturing and supply chain management organizations.
In today's production environment, "automation" has a new, more advanced meaning than it has in the past. Industry 4.0 refers to the necessity of lean, efficient operations and the function of sustaining and improving production. In contrast, IIoT distinguishes manufacturing gadgets from consumer products that can connect wirelessly to internal networks and the internet.
IIoT Powering the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Manufacturing, logistics, oil and gas, transportation, mining, aviation, energy, and other industries use the IIoT. Its main goal is to improve operations, mainly through process automation and maintenance. IIoT capabilities improve asset performance and allow for improved maintenance management. The introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies marked a significant milestone in the human-machine relationship's history. I4.0 was first talked about in 2011. Since then, it has proliferated because of new technologies such as cyber-physical systems, IT/OT convergence, AI/ML, Blockchain, and AR/VR.
Data is at the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the main reasons behind this. The IoT is making a significant contribution in making businesses smarter and improving their workflows. Moreover, more data is being made and used by connected devices than ever before, from the home to the factory.
In order to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution, businesses must embrace new technologies. The general structure of IIoT applications is defined by standards-based industrial system architectures such as the Industrial Internet Consortium's Reference Architecture. Sensors and IoT devices, IoT middleware platforms, IoT gateways, edge/cloud infrastructures, and analytics applications are all part of the stack.
The Future of the IIoT
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is primarily regarded as one of the most significant current and future trends influencing industrial companies.
To comply with new rules, industries are rushing to upgrade their systems, machinery, and equipment. This is necessary to keep up with market volatility and deal with disruptive technologies.
Safety, efficiency, and profitability have all improved dramatically in industries that have adopted IIoT. As IIoT technologies become more widely adopted, this tendency is projected to continue.
Conclusion
The fourth industrial revolution has drastically altered our perceptions of things in the workplace. At a rapid rate, capitalists are becoming more interested in sophisticated ideas.
The way forward is to embrace existing and emerging technology throughout fundamental operations to unleash more enticing possibilities. It emphasizes the importance of comprehending the impact collaborative ecosystems can have as well as how they will become a major differentiator for generating value with a better-trained workforce.
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IoT Security
Article | June 28, 2023
Find out the upcoming and established companies providing IoT security for businesses. These allow adopting best practices & make informed technology investment decisions, for secure performance.
IoT security helps implement strong authentication, encryption, and access controls for IoT devices, while regularly updating firmware and monitoring for threats, to ensure the security of interconnected systems and protect sensitive data in a business environment.
Here is a carefully curated list of 15 Top IoT security companies, providing security to IoT devices, thereby ensuring their privacy and integration.
1. Ordr Inc.
Ordr is a leading provider of connected device security solutions deployed in numerous organizations worldwide across industries like healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, retail, and government. Its platform addresses vital use cases such as healthcare and medical device security, real-time asset visibility, compliance, threat detection and response, IoT and OT security, Zero Trust segmentation, and NAC acceleration. Ordr has earned industry recognition as the KLAS Healthcare IoT Leader for three consecutive years and is featured in Gartner Market Guides for OT Security and Medical Device Security Solutions. Prominent investors, including Battery Ventures, Mayo Clinic Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, back Ordr. The SOC2-certified platform demonstrates its commitment to customer privacy and data security. Its comprehensive approach ensures organizations can protect patient care, maintain real-time asset inventory, detect threats, implement zero trust segmentation, accelerate NAC, and secure IT/OT environments.
2. Medigate by Claroty
Medigate is a solution that comprehensively addresses healthcare organizations' unique challenges. The need for a coordinated security strategy becomes paramount as the convergence of IT, OT, IoT, and physical systems continues in the clinical environment. Medigate provides the confidence to secure, manage, and gain insights from all devices connected to the network, including a wide range of medical devices with proprietary protocols and operational parameters. Protecting the network can be overwhelming, with thousands of devices from different manufacturers. Medigate's specialized approach ensures that security measures do not compromise device usability, eliminating the need for compromise between security and functionality. In terms of investors, Medigate has received backing from prominent organizations such as Siemens, BMWiVentures, and SoftBank. These partnerships reinforce Medigate's commitment to delivering innovative solutions that enhance cybersecurity and enable organizations to connect confidently.
3. Aryballe
One of the top IoT security companies, Aryballe combines biochemical sensors, advanced optics, and machine learning to create a unique digital olfaction solution. By mimicking the human sense of smell, Aryballe's objective is to collect, display, and analyze odor data, empowering companies to make more informed decisions. Aryballe's software suite complements this hardware, which offers user-friendly protocol and analysis tools. These tools enable R&D, quality, and manufacturing professionals to integrate digital odor data into their decision-making processes seamlessly. Aryballe's software and data solutions are particularly valuable to the automotive, food & beverage, consumer appliances, and flavor & fragrance industries. The odor displays and analysis provided by Aryballe's technology empower leaders in these sectors to make smarter business decisions. Additionally, Aryballe's digital olfaction solutions have applications for enhancing user experiences within the automotive and consumer appliance markets.
4. Timesys Corporation
Timesys is a leader and pioneer in the embedded software market, offering open-source software security, development tools, and engineering services. With a comprehensive end-to-end device security solution, it enables developers to implement strong security measures early in the design phase. It has extensive embedded development experience and serves a diverse customer base, including Global 500 companies in the medical, industrial, networking, aerospace, and consumer sectors. The company's global partner ecosystem comprises leading semiconductor manufacturers, board vendors, and distributors. Its security services include VigiShield Secure by Design, which focuses on integrating core security features into device designs, and Vigiles, a tool for monitoring and remediating vulnerabilities. Furthermore, it offers an embedded board farm for test automation and remote access infrastructure, facilitating collaborative software development and debugging processes.
5. QA Mentor
QA mentor is a one-stop solution for application and mobile app testing. It is an award-winning software by QA company headquartered in New York. With multiple certifications and a CMMI Level 3 SVC + SSD v1.3 appraisals, the company offers comprehensive software testing services to clients globally. QA Mentor serves various industries, including startups and Fortune 500 companies. Their unique selling points include customizable testing processes, flexible on-demand services, and economical pricing. They specialize in various QA services, such as test design and execution, mobile/browser compatibility testing, QA audit and process improvement, automation testing, performance testing, security testing, regression testing, crowdsourcing testing, and QA e-learning. With a state-of-the-art test lab, unique methodologies, and expertise in automation tools, QA Mentor stands out in the industry.
6. Mocana
Mocana is a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions for IoT, operational technology, and critical infrastructure. Their on-device cybersecurity software and lifecycle management platform enable manufacturers and industrial companies to build tamper-resistant self-defending systems. Mocana's integrated solutions help minimize the risk of cyber breaches, ensure compliance with industry standards, and protect intellectual property throughout the device lifecycle. Unlike traditional IT network security approaches, Mocana empowers devices to protect themselves and prevent malware installation. Their platform facilitates application development and updates, ensures device protection and hardening in the field, supports interoperability between legacy and new devices, and offers automated operations with centralized control.
7. Verimatrix
Verimatrix, one of the many IoT security companies, is a leading provider of people-centered security solutions that power the modern connected world. Their intuitive and frictionless security offerings protect digital content, applications, and devices across various industries. Major brands rely on Verimatrix to secure premium movies, live-streaming sports, sensitive financial and healthcare data, and mission-critical mobile applications. Verimatrix helps its customers deliver compelling content and experiences to millions of consumers worldwide by enabling trusted connections. Their solutions provide robust security and help partners accelerate market time, quickly scale their operations, safeguard valuable revenue streams, and attract new business opportunities. With a focus on plugging security holes, thwarting pirate and cyberattacks, and preserving revenue, Verimatrix plays a crucial role in protecting the digital ecosystem and ensuring the delivery of exceptional experiences in an unprotected digital world.
8. Keyfactor
Keyfactor is a trusted provider of identity-first security solutions that bring digital trust to the hyper-connected world. With a focus on machine and human identities, Keyfactor simplifies PKI, automates certificate lifecycle management, and secures every device, workload, and thing. By enabling organizations to establish and maintain digital trust at scale, Keyfactor helps them move quickly in a zero-trust environment. In the face of increasing cyber threats, Keyfactor addresses the challenges of securing 5G networks and communications, meeting evolving standards and scalability, and adapting to changing architectures. Keyfactor's flexible solutions can be deployed in various environments, including data centers, cloud, SaaS, or hybrid architectures. With a comprehensive PKI management platform, Keyfactor enables organizations to protect their networks and manage certificates efficiently.
9. Vdoo
Vdoo is a global leader in the product security space, offering a comprehensive platform for identifying and mitigating security issues. It is the only automated platform that provides end-to-end product security, helping organizations streamline their development and security processes while ensuring optimal product security. With Vdoo, development and security teams can efficiently address a wide range of security risks, including supply chain threats, configuration risks, standard compliance, and zero-day vulnerabilities. Vdoo's platform enables organizations to integrate security seamlessly into their DevOps workflows, automate compliance assurance, and fortify security across the software supply chain. By offering intelligent and automated security solutions from code to container to device, Vdoo empowers organizations to safeguard their software's integrity and protect against malicious activity.
10. CyberMDX
CyberMDX, a Forescout company is a leading provider of IoT security solutions focused on safeguarding healthcare delivery worldwide. Its cloud-based cybersecurity solutions support the advancement of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) by protecting connected medical devices. The CyberMDX solution offers comprehensive endpoint identification, vulnerability assessment, incident detection, response, and prevention capabilities. Deployed globally, CyberMDX seamlessly integrates with customers' existing environments through its scalable and agentless solution. It provides continuous, real-time discovery and visibility of all medical devices connected to clinical networks. Recognized as a representative vendor in the Gartner Market Guide for Medical Device Security Solutions, Forescout delivers robust cybersecurity capabilities for healthcare organizations. With its automated and customizable approach, Forescout ensures the security and integrity of medical devices and IoMT ecosystems.
11. Sepio
Among the many best IoT security companies, Sepio is a leading asset risk management platform that prioritizes asset existence over activity. Through its physical layer asset DNA profiling, Sepio offers customers actionable visibility, policy enforcement, and mitigation capabilities, empowering them to gain better control over all assets at scale. Regardless of whether the infrastructure is connected to IT, OT, or IoT, Sepio's trafficless monitoring ensures an asset-agnostic solution. Sepio's platform caters to various industries, including financial institutions, healthcare institutions, and critical infrastructures globally. The platform allows the discovery of both known and shadow assets, mitigates risks associated with uncontrolled assets, reduces hardware clutter, enforces asset policies, meets regulatory compliance, and seamlessly integrates with existing security tools. Sepio's asset risk management benefits extend to uncovering hidden asset risks, providing organizations with the necessary insights and tools to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses.
12. Nexusguard
Nexusguard, a provider of simplified DDoS protection solutions for both service providers and enterprises, provides a range of offerings, including cloud services, managed DDoS protection platforms, and professional training courses. It empowers organizations to effectively safeguard their networks and applications against DDoS attacks. For communications service providers (CSPs), Nexusguard offers managed cloud-based DDoS protection solutions that cover various aspects such as application protection, origin protection, edge protection, and DNS protection. These solutions ensure the secure operation of internet-facing websites, shield networks and systems from threats, scale up protection for internet uplinks and infrastructure, and keep DNS services up and running. Nexusguard's offerings also include the Nexusguard Bastions server, a purpose-built on premise solution for CSPs that seamlessly integrates the company's proprietary technologies and global cloud scrubbing capabilities into the CSP's environment.
13. IoTium
IoTium is a provider of secure, managed software-defined network infrastructure for industrial IoT applications. Its solution enables the secure connection of both legacy and greenfield mission-critical on-site machinery and automation systems to applications residing in data centers or the cloud. By offering zero-touch provisioning and eliminating complexities in scalable mass deployments, IoTium ensures seamless and secure connectivity at scale. IoTium's View Smart Building Cloud addresses these security risks by implementing a Zero-trust Network Architecture (ZTNA). This includes secure tunnels with end-to-end encryption, certificate-based device authentication, and secure remote access with multi-factor authentication. It offers centralized management and visibility of building networks and OT devices, along with the ability to deploy edge applications for real-time processing and optimizations.
14. SCADAfence
SCADAfence, one of the top IoT security solution companies is a global technology leader specializing in OT and IoT cybersecurity. It offers a comprehensive suite of industrial cybersecurity products designed to provide robust protection for large-scale networks. Its portfolio includes top-notch network monitoring, asset discovery, governance, remote access, and IoT device security solutions. By leveraging SCADAfence's solutions, organizations operating in critical infrastructure, manufacturing, and building management industries can ensure secure, reliable, and efficient operations. SCADAfence's solutions cater to various industries, such as manufacturing, critical infrastructure, and building management. With a commitment to providing valuable resources and insights, it maintains an informative blog and offers opportunities for customers to request a live demonstration of its solutions
15. Xage Security
Xage is a global leader in real-world security, offering zero-trust solutions for industrial cybersecurity. Its flagship product, the Xage Fabric, simplifies and accelerates digital operations across OT, IT, and cloud environments. By adopting a unified approach based on zero-trust principles, Xage enables secure remote access and identity-driven access management for operational assets. Its solution eliminates the vulnerabilities associated with traditional remote access methods and provides granular access control down to individual assets, reducing the attack surface area. With Xage, organizations benefit from simplified and friction-free remote access, strengthened cybersecurity with advanced controls like multi-factor authentication, and full visibility and control of remote sessions. Its solutions also enable secure session collaboration, protect file transfers, and mitigate malware and anomalous behaviors. With Xage, organizations can fortify their cybersecurity infrastructure, enhance productivity, and meet evolving security challenges.
Conclusion
To stay ahead in IoT security market ,it is important to keep an eye on prominent companies leading the way in this field. These companies offer innovative solutions and expertise to address the evolving challenges of IoT security. By following their advancements and leveraging their technologies, businesses can enhance their defenses and mitigate risks in the ever-expanding IoT landscape.
Follow the list of top 15 companies,provided above to strengthen cybersecurity with advanced controls, end-to-end encryption, certificate-based device authentication, secure remote access with multi-factor authentication, among others.They empower organizations to safeguard their software's integrity and protect against malicious activity. The companies play a crucial role in protecting the digital ecosystem and ensuring the delivery of exceptional experiences,analysing the IoT statistics, in an unprotected digital world.
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