Navigating the IoT Attack Lifecycle: A Comprehensive Approach to Prevention, Mitigation, and Recovery

Adding Internet of Things (IoT) devices to an organization’s networks follows a business operations and cybersecurity version of Newton’s Third Law, which states that for every action, an equal and opposite reaction exists. A new cybersecurity risk exists for every new IoT device that improves business operations. 

These new risks are no longer hypothetical, with research noting a 45% increase in IoT malware attacks, with 66% of all detected cyber attacks targeting routers.  The IoT attack lifecycle encompasses multiple stages from the initial breach to the full compromise of connected ecosystems. At each stage, organizations face challenges as they try to protect their networks and systems. 

To mitigate risk across the IoT attack lifecycle, organizations need tools that help identify, mitigate, and, hopefully, prevent attacks. 

What is the IoT Attack Lifecycle?

When malicious actors deploy an attack against IoT devices, the typical process follows these steps: 

• Scan the network: During the reconnaissance phase, attackers will scan networks to identify all connected devices. 
• Connect to network: To get more information about devices, attackers will try to access the network after identifying a device’s IP address. 
• Research the device: With the device’s manufacturer and model information, attackers can use internet research to identify default passwords or vulnerabilities. 
• Gain access to the device: Whether using the default password or exploiting a known vulnerability, attackers gain access to and control over the device, enabling them to pivot across the network to other sensitive systems and information. 

Some typical attack types include:

• Exploiting vulnerabilities: finding known security weaknesses in operating systems, software, and firmware that enable unauthorized access
• Malware, spyware, and ransomware: installing malicious code on devices that then spreads across the network to other devices
• Man in the Middle (MitM) attacks: intercepting data transmitted across the network as devices communicate with each other

IoT Attack Lifecycle Prevention Best Practices & How Asimily Helps Achieve Them

Preventing cyber attacks targeting IoT devices is critical, yet many organizations face challenges when trying to implement security across their large, diverse deployments. Organizations often have a range of smart devices that can include:

• Smart TVs
• Security cameras
• HVAC systems
• Building automation systems
• Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices, like insulin pumps
• Industrial IoT (IIoT) to manage manufacturing processes

1. Identify IoT Devices

Organizations often have thousands – or even hundreds of thousands – of IoT devices deployed. Before you can secure your deployment, you need to know the devices connected to your networks. 

Asimily passively collects asset data, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for network traffic pattern analysis and comprehensive deep packet inspection for an accurate asset inventory that includes the following information:

• Hardware: manufacturer, model, serial number
• Software: operating system, version, firmware revisions
• Device type and function
• Security assessment: vulnerabilities and risks

Additionally, for the most up-to-date and accurate IoT device inventory, Asimily’s agentless solution:

• Ingests outside data sources to create a higher-quality asset inventory, like gathering information from vulnerability scanners, CMDBs, DHCP services, or SNMP
• Parses new device communication protocols so you can easily add future manufacturers or devices to your asset management system
• Exposes devices immediately when detected without requiring human analysis
• Identify, capture, and monitor operating systems, applications, firmware versions, and patch levels present within IoT, OT, and IoMT inventory
• Discover and inventory serial-attached devices and understand parent-child relationships
• Detect legacy operating systems that the manufacturer no longer supports
• Alert teams when identifying a new device

2. Analyze Risk

Every connected device creates a new cybersecurity risk. When implementing IoT attack prevention strategies, you need to know the risk that a device poses to your security posture, even before deploying it live in the environment. 

Asimily provides risk modeling and reporting during and after the procurement process with:

• Easy-to-read organizations risk scores that understand and summarize overall device risk levels
• Simulations that provide insight into device risk if deployed with default configurations 
• Theoretical and actionable recommendations to show specific changes that will immediately reduce the current risk

3. Harden Devices

Device hardening is the process of implementing known secure configurations for devices by:

• Changing default settings
• Disabling unnecessary functionalities and communications

Device hardening reduces the attack surface by limiting what devices can do, closing off potential attack points. 

Asimily enables you to understand and mitigate risk starting with the procurement process by:

• Simulating the risk device default configurations would create
• Offering theoretical and actionable recommendations for improving security 
• Providing targeted remediation guidance by surfacing the simplest action with the greatest risk reduction benefit, like blocking ports
• Capturing a device’s “known good configurations” with complete details about ports, services, external IP, topology, and more 
• Setting automated rules and parameters for creating bulk and automation configuration snapshots across large device fleets
• Engaging in regular configuration drift checks
• Sending alerts when a device drifts from the preferred configurations
• Assigning a risk rating of high/medium/low/none to different configuration categories
• Comparing configurations, including parameter level changes, when configuration drift occurs
• Providing a timeline view to assist in an investigation into how configuration drift occurred

4. Implement Targeted Segmentation

Targeted segmentation groups IoT devices based on shared exploit vectors, like the ones defined by the MITRE ATT&CK framework. This network segmentation technique augments your macro-segmentation architecture and reduces costs associated with micro-segmentation. By focusing on device type and configuration risk profile, targeted segmentation enables you to improve your IoT attack prevention capabilities by focusing on risk mitigations that apply to multiple device types and manufacturers. 

Asimily enables you to implement targeted segmentation more efficiently by:

• Accurately classifying and categorizing devices
• Enabling full customization about how to group devices, like according to department or criticality
• Using MITRE terminology for vulnerability descriptions 
• Creating Access Control Lists (ACLs) based on your environment to aid in zero-trust efforts and simplify your network security processes

5. Identify and Remediate Vulnerabilities

Attackers often use a device’s known security weaknesses as a way to gain control of it. Many organizations struggle because a vulnerability’s existence doesn’t always mean that attackers can use that security weakness to gain access to systems and networks. The IT and security teams try to remediate every vulnerability without insight into other risk mitigations. 

Asimily’s platform enables you to identify IoT device vulnerabilities and prioritize your remediation activities by:

• Passively scanning networks to detect vulnerabilities without taking IoT devices offline
• Using the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) and manufacturer sources to find new vulnerabilities
• Defining vulnerabilities with the widely understood MITRE terminology
• Enabling remediation prioritization with a Risk Simulator that considers your environment’s context when showing how each mitigation effort reduces risk 
• Analyzing vulnerabilities using the MITRE ATT&CK framework to identify the highest-priority vulnerabilities by eliminating lower-priority and non-exploitable vulnerabilities based on the specific context (network, configuration) of each device
• Analyzing SBOM data to enhance the vulnerability mitigation process
• Creating a source of truth for vulnerability mitigation processes by reducing or eliminating false positives within the platform and across other vulnerability management tools
• Providing targeted remediation guidance based on the simplest action that reduces the most risk while blocking the attack chain of a specific vulnerability
• Providing an actionable list of mitigations ranked by risk, which is based on Potential Impact and Likelihood of exploitation
• Ensuring no operational impacts occur when implementing remediation recommendations
• Supporting the ability to assign remediation tasks to specific users

6. Quickly Detect and Respond to Incidents 

The less time attackers spend in your systems, the less damage they can do. Rapid incident detection, investigation, and response processes reduce dwell time and an attack’s impact. 

Asimily’s platform integrates with your security incident detection and response technology stack to improve alerts by:

• Defining a normal baseline for IoT network traffic
• Analyzing device network traffic to detect anomalies that may indicate potential compromise or malicious activities
• Offering new rules to help identify new threats, like zero-day attacks
• Triggering response actions, like quarantining or alerts, to improve response and recovery times
• Creating rules for anomaly detections with or without programming skills, like using YARA rules
• Capturing packet-level traffic for any device for later forensic analysis
• Retaining packet-level traffic capture data in a preferred storage location
• Detecting unauthorized traffic between IT-OT as well as external communications to protected OT areas

Asimily: All-In-One IoT Attack Lifecycle Prevention

Asimily is purpose-built to manage IoT devices so that organizations have visibility into and control over their fleets. Our platform provides context, taking into account vulnerabilities and the IT environment, so organizations can mitigate risk more effectively. 

Organizations efficiently identify high-risk vulnerabilities with our proprietary, patented algorithm that cross-references vast amounts of data from resources like EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System), Software Bills of Material (SBOMs), Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) lists, the MITRE ATT&CK Framework, and NIST Guidelines. It understands your unique environment, so our deep contextual recommendation engine can provide real-time, actionable remediation steps to reduce risk and save time.

To learn more about Asimily, download our IoT Device Security in 2024: The High Cost of Doing Nothing whitepaper or contact us today.