Mitigating the Risks of IoT Patching

Internet of Things (IoT) devices give organizations the ability to gain insights and streamline operations, but inherently add attack surface area and therefore require time-consuming vulnerability remediation processes to mitigate security risks. 

For traditional enterprise IT devices, many companies use automated patch management tools that detect vulnerabilities, prioritize risk reduction, and apply updates to remote devices. As a result, servers and workstations can expect to be patched regularly and well. However, until recently, organizations struggled to find automated solutions that provide the same capabilities for IoT devices because these devices come with unique risks that include:

• Downtime: Minimal on-device processing power or memory requires taking devices offline to update them
• Credential management: Good security practice means each of these IoT devices has unique credentials, which can be hard to manage
• Vendor management: Tracking when manufacturers deploy patches, and for which devices
• Time commitment: Updating high volumes of devices is time-consuming, especially if done safely with a back-off process in place
• Patching at scale: Deploying large numbers of the same IoT devices requires patching all of them, which becomes overwhelming when doing it device by device

To overcome the risks of IoT patching, they should consider whether an automated solution offers the appropriate capabilities for identifying and applying new, safe firmware across their complex deployments.

Identifying New Patches to Improve Key Metrics

Organizations can have hundreds or thousands of IoT devices deployed across their environment. Within those fleets, they may have nearly an equal number of different manufacturers. Manually scanning each manufacturer’s repository for new firmware releases is time-consuming and inefficient, especially when IT teams are already understaffed. 

Asimily’s IoT Patching solution monitors all relevant IoT manufacturer repositories to notify customers about new updates, enabling teams to track when manufacturers deploy patches. With Asimily’s passive scanning capabilities, organizations can identify all devices eligible for an upgrade. Further, Asimily engages in patch testing, actively looking for potential issues that could cause service disruption so customers can deploy patches with less work. These processes ensure that organizations can apply updates faster, enabling them to improve key patch management metrics like:

• Patching cadence: regulatory or internal requirements around timelines for applying updates
• Time to Turnaround a patch: time spent testing and deploying a patch across the IoT fleet

Asimily covers various general and industry-specific connected devices, including common ones such as:

• Security cameras
• Printers
• Networking equipment 

Scheduled Patching to Reduce Downtime

With tested patches ready, organizations need to schedule the installations carefully to prevent service disruptions that can impact revenue. When patching IoT devices, the organization must assume that the device will not function during the patch process. This assumption limits when teams can apply patches. For example, critical IoT devices managing manufacturing processes might be best applied outside of business hours to mitigate risk, while updating a printer during work hours would have a limited impact if the devices fall offline. 

Asimily’s IoT Patching solution enables organizations to deploy patches at a predetermined time and date. By scheduling the installation this way, organizations can dramatically minimize operational disruption while maintaining system security and availability. 

Bulk and Automated Patching to Improve Patching Cadence

The longer the patch management team takes to apply an update, the more time attackers have to exploit the vulnerability. Generally speaking, most organizations define their patching cadence based on the vulnerability’s severity. Best practices normally suggest the following timelines:

• Critical and high-severity vulnerabilities: as soon as possible
• Medium-severity vulnerabilities: 30-45 days at most
• Low-severity vulnerabilities: 45-90 days at most

Bulk and automated patching enables organizations to meet or even exceed these requirements by giving them a way to patch at scale. 

With Asimily’s IoT Patching solution, organizations can achieve for their IoT devices the same patching cadence that applies to their traditional enterprise devices with:

• Automated patching: availability of new firmware immediately triggers the entire patching process to reduce attack risk
• Bulk patching: grouping devices to receive patches together to save time 

By using a centralized location for managing all IoT device patch installation activities, organizations also mitigate risks arising from credential management. Asimily’s platform enables organizations to manage user credentials and apply the principle of least privilege for users so that only the right people have the right amount of access necessary to update devices. 

Track and Document Patching Activities to Mitigate Compliance Risk

Patching devices is a near-universal security control across different regulations and compliance frameworks. Across diversified IoT device fleets, patching is already challenging, but sometimes documenting all activities to prove compliance is even more difficult. Applying and installing a patch often means understanding or mastering different manufacturer mechanisms. Meanwhile, documenting these processes is challenging as organizations often have little insight into the patch deployed. Governance over the IoT patching process means managing and tracking the patch deployment’s history and status. 

To solve these problems, Asimily’s IoT Patching capability offers:

• A unified patching process that reduces the learning curve required across complex, disparate vendor patch application methodologies, so organizations can deploy faster
• Insight into available firmware versions to document and track the current version installed on devices
• Management and tracking capabilities that provide compliance insights so organizations can prove governance over their IoT patching programs

Overcome IoT Patching Risks with Asimily

As the number and variety of IoT devices that an organization uses increase, patching cadence becomes more important than ever before. Simultaneously, it becomes more challenging to implement, maintain, track, and manage. Asimily’s purpose-built IoT management platform provides visibility into and control over device fleets. With a centralized location for managing the IoT patching process, organizations can improve their overarching security posture by identifying vulnerabilities and installing patches faster. 

With Asimily’s IoT Patching function, security and IT teams can more effectively and efficiently update IoT devices while reducing the operational risks and costs arising from the process. With a centralized location for managing these processes, organizations can monitor for new firmware fixes and then either trigger automatic updates or schedule patch deployments, depending on the risk the vulnerability poses and the impact that service downtime will have. 
To learn more about Asimily and the IoT patching functionality, reach out now to book a demo.