6 Ways Endpoint Security Enhances IoT Efficiency
What are 6 ways endpoint security enhances Internet of Things (IoT) efficiency? What can this offer your enterprise? Why should your business prioritize it?
As IoT devices proliferate, more enterprises than ever incorporate them into their networks and business processes. However, IoT devices often become added into enterprise environments without due consideration. Sometimes, your IT security team may not even know what or how many IoT devices connect to your network!
Not only does this create serious security holes, but it also limits your IoT efficiency in the long term. In fact, your business might miss out on the incredible benefits of the IoT as a result!
Obviously, a next-generation endpoint security solution enhances your IoT security, as we discussed in previous articles. Yet endpoint security also enhances IoT efficiency! Here’s how!
1. Security Means IoT Efficiency
Of course, endpoint security translates to IoT security—an absolute necessity in modern digital perimeter security. After all, the IoT remains a notorious source of hacks and attacks. Most IoT devices possess no security whatsoever. Manufacturers prioritize speed and processing over cybersecurity, often to their products’ detriment.
Moreover, even those IoT devices with security firmware suffer from integration and upgrade issues; most enterprises don’t know if their IoT devices need an upgrade at all!
Thus, endpoint security works to protect IoT devices, and as a direct result it also enhances IoT efficiency. For example, security means IoT devices do not cause financial losses due to data breaches, which infamously happened to an unnamed casino.
Efficiency does not just translate to just progress. It also means preventing monetary losses long term as a result of dangerous inefficiencies.
2. Improved Visibility (and Thus More IoT Efficiency)
Another potential issue with IoT devices is digital invisibility. Indeed, many IoT devices can actually “vanish” from network view; even though they still connect to the network, they don’t appear in the network map.
To say this constitutes a security risk undersells it considerably. However, it also represents a serious failure in IoT efficiency. How can you incorporate IoT into your business processes effectively if you don’t know which devices connect to your network?
Additionally, how can you know if your business processes operate optimally if you don’t know which devices it moves through?
Thankfully, endpoint security allows your enterprise to “turn the lights on” in your network, so to speak. It can uncover hidden IoT devices and monitor data traffic moving in and out of them; together, you can use this to gain better insight into your IoT related processes.
Visibility constitutes the core of both security and efficiency. IoT needs to be part of all of these conversations. Speaking of which…
3. The Power to Evaluate Your IoT Devices
How many IoT devices does it take to overwhelm your network? Which devices are “necessary” and which only create more risk long term?
These aren’t idle questions. In fact, they represent essential considerations in your overall cybersecurity and business processes. To maximize your IoT efficiency, your business should not incorporate unnecessary IoT devices into your digital environment.
More devices not only means more security holes, but it also means more divergent avenues for data traffic. Additionally, each device can become an inadvertent database which can conceal critical information.
A next-generation endpoint security device can help you set limits on the IoT devices connecting to your network, thus improving your IoT efficiency. This can also prevent unknown IoT devices from connecting to your network in the first place
4. Centralized Information (Security and Otherwise)
IoT efficiency doesn’t make abstract promises. In fact, it can lend your enterprise valuable data and faster processes.
Here’s a classic example: a retailer can use IoT devices to determine where customers spend the most time in their stores via Bluetooth signals. Armed with this knowledge, they can rearrange the products in the store to optimize sales.
Another example springs to mind: enterprises can use the IoT to observe which products sell better at different times of the day. Thus this allows retailers to make changes throughout the day to optimize their sales even more.
These examples barely skim the surface of the possible data the IoT can supply your enterprise. However, without focusing on IoT efficiency, you won’t have the capability to actually evaluate this data; the data will remain scattered through decentralization as is often inherent with IoT devices.
Fortunately, an endpoint security solution allows your enterprise to centralize the information it receives from your IoT devices. You can also ensure data from your IoT devices becomes directed to proper databases for proper use.
5. Reduce IT Security Team Involvement
The less time your IT security team has to worry about a given project, the more time they can invest in other innovations and improvements. Obviously, without an endpoint security solution to ensure IoT efficiency, these devices become a significant time sink.
That’s because next-generation endpoint security can monitor IoT devices via automation. With endpoint detection and response, they can even alert your security team automatically when it detects potential problems in security or data flows.
Therefore, this serves as an overlap between IoT efficiency and your everyday business efficiency.
6. Patching and Upgrading
Finally, endpoint security and management tools help your IT security team patch and update your IoT devices. As we mentioned above, manufacturers rarely make this process easy; simply knowing if a patch for an IoT device is available can prove difficult.
Not only do patches contain valuable threat intelligence vital to cybersecurity, but they also ensure optimal IoT efficiency. After all, you wouldn’t work with a laptop with an outdated operating system. Why work with an outdated IoT device, with all that entails—including slower performance?
Security and efficiency in business process should go hand in hand. Endpoint security thus ensures your enterprise enjoys IoT efficiency while remaining safe from malicious outside influence.
If you want to learn more about IoT endpoint security, you should check out our 2019 Endpoint Security Buyer’s Guide. We cover the top vendors in the field and their key capabilities. Plus, we offer a Bottom Line on each!