How Well-Meaning Device Changes Accidentally Weaken IoT Security

The only constant in life may be change, but for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, even small changes can compromise device security if not carefully controlled. 

IoT devices are becoming more flexible, designed for scalability and easy deployment. As part of a device’s normal lifecycle, a technician may adjust settings for performance, apply a manufacturer’s firmware patch, or enable a new feature. However, even well-intentioned changes can result in configuration changes that reduce cybersecurity. 

Modifications to IoT device settings can inadvertently roll back or override parts of the device’s hardened baseline, potentially creating vulnerabilities that malicious actors can exploit. To combat these risks, organizations can use configuration control to safeguard IoT environments and ensure all devices maintain their hardened baseline.

Understanding IoT Device Hardening and the Role of Change Management

Despite their ubiquity, many IoT devices fail to follow secured-by-design default best practices and lack built-in security configurations. As a result, it falls to the organizations that purchase and deploy these devices to implement a secure baseline configuration. 

Device hardening involves implementing secure configurations or a known good state and disabling unnecessary functionalities and communications. The trouble comes when well-meaning changes, whether firmware updates, troubleshooting, or maintenance, shift an IoT device out of this hardened state. The resulting configuration drift is the silent killer of IoT security, and to prevent this, organizations must implement robust IoT change management procedures alongside device hardening best practices. 

Why IoT Device Hardening is Challenging

IoT devices are ideal targets for malicious actors. These devices, such as smart cameras, sensors, thermostats, and more, rapidly expand an organization’s attack surface and can be challenging to monitor. An insecure connected device can lead to a foothold for malicious actors to gain initial access to a network. Research shows that IoT malware attacks rose 45% from 2023 to 2024, with a 12% increase in attempts to deliver malware to IoT devices. 

While device hardening addresses the risk of common attack vectors, maintaining the hardened state is also a challenge. Activities as simple as pushing a firmware update or changing network settings result in configuration drift without internal teams even realizing it. After all, no organization has the resources to manually check each device daily to ensure it remains hardened. 

Configuration Drift: How Well-Meaning Changes Can Disrupt IoT Security 

Configuration drift occurs when changes shift an IoT device from its secure, approved settings, making it unreliable and often unsafe. Often, configuration drift is difficult to notice; perhaps a troubleshooting session resulted in re-enabling remote admin access to a device, or updates push devices out of sync with tools that run anomaly detection. 

IoT device security is a balancing act. It’s common for temporary fixes to be implemented in IoT systems to address urgent problems. However, when quick fixes go undocumented, increasing it increases the likelihood of configuration drift. IoT devices are not as easy to update and patch as traditional IT assets, creating challenges with vulnerability management and firmware updates. Additionally, changes to one device can lead to vulnerabilities across the wider network, especially if IoT devices are interconnected, creating a domino effect of security issues. Misconfigurations due to drift can also result in compliance drift, leading systems to fall out of regulatory standards and putting sensitive information at risk.

For example, imagine a third-party technician sent to a hospital to update an IoT-enabled MRI machine. During maintenance, if the technician isn’t careful to reapply hardened configurations, then security controls like firewall rules and disabled ports may be lost, leaving the device vulnerable to exploitation. From here, a malicious actor could target the device and, because the device is connected to the broader hospital network without any security controls, use that access to move laterally to other systems and gain access to patient data. 

Unfortunately, configuration drift can be hard to spot, creating a trickle-down effect of network issues. When IoT ecosystems fall out of sync with the rest of the network, outages and regressions can occur. This can result in data loss and extended outages, hampering productivity and efficiency. Implementing a strategic approach to prevent and address configuration drift is crucial for successful IoT infrastructure management.

Enhancing IoT Security through Change Management

Change should be anything but constant for IoT devices—it should be carefully managed and part of a robust security strategy. Implementing IoT change management and configuration control begins with understanding the scale of IoT devices on the network and each device’s last known good configuration. Once organizations have a deep understanding of their IoT ecosystem, they can put an end to sneaky security risks via configuration drift.

An IoT security solution can play a vital role in the IoT change management process. The right IoT security solution helps organizations manage IoT policies, create a record of each device’s last known good configuration state, and reduce alert fatigue by limiting notifications when devices operate within normal perimeters. The snapshot of each device’s hardened state should also include a date and time stamp, which helps to simplify audit and compliance requirements. 

A major benefit of integrating an IoT security solution into the change management process is scalability. A tool does what no internal team could feasibly manage: it continuously monitors each device across the network. This way, whether a vendor pushes an update that re-enabled insecure protocols or if a technician manually adjusted a setting during routine maintenance, the security solution will flag the change immediately. From here, internal teams can easily return the devices to the last known good state.

By making an IoT security solution an integral part of the change management process, organizations don’t just deploy security configurations. They keep them.

Asimily: Implement IoT Security Change Management and Prevent Configuration Drift

Changes to IoT devices, even if well-intentioned, can undermine security efforts, but fighting configuration drift doesn’t have to be a struggle. With the right IoT security solution, organizations can mitigate the risk of configuration drift and ensure changes and updates only happen as part of an approved, structured process.

The Asimily platform has long been purpose-built for connected device security. Now, with Asimily Configuration Control, organizations gain access to a “digital time machine” that ensures their connected device fleet continues operating in an approved, known good state. With Configuration Control, teams can quickly and easily compare any device to its known good state, highlighting any changes and effortlessly reducing the risk of configuration drift. As an added benefit, teams can set meaningful alerts for when changes do occur, reducing alert fatigue and enabling near real-time decision-making and response. 

Contact us today to learn more about Asimily Configuration Control.