London, UK – April 6th 2020 – Outpost24, an innovator in identifying and managing cyber security exposure, has today announced the results of the Internet of Evil Things survey conducted at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, which examined the attitudes of over 200 security professionals towards wireless security preparedness. The survey revealed that 53 percent of respondents confessed to having no visibility into the number of devices connected to their company network.
With Gartner predicting global investment into 5G and wireless infrastructure to reach over $4 billion this year, the arrival of 5G and the further expansion of BYOD and IoT devices will no doubt increase data consumption and connectivity. Indeed, the demand for heightened security awareness and continuous security monitoring into the threats posed by wireless technology has never been greater.
However, according to the survey’s findings, 69 percent of security professionals admitted to not testing for malicious infections or known vulnerabilities within wireless devices on a weekly basis. This lack of visibility into the wireless airspace indicates that there is either a lack of clarity into wireless security threats or a severe oversight by organisations when it comes to their overall wireless security strategies.
“Visibility remains one of the biggest issues in cybersecurity. What you can’t see can indeed hurt you. With higher levels of network traffic and more connected devices than ever, it highlights that current vulnerability assessments are not as extensive as they should be. Wireless threat detection is often ignored or addressed in a reactive manner” comments Bob Egner Head of Products at Outpost24.The survey also asked respondents if their organisation has or requires any security authentication to initiate Bluetooth pairing or wireless connection to the network. Alarmingly, it was revealed that over half (51%) of enterprises lack pre-existing security controls to examine devices before they join the network. Additionally, almost a quarter (23%) of organisations do not have or are unsure as to whether they have a guest Wi-Fi network for non-employees.
Given the number of vulnerabilities within modern wireless and Bluetooth devices, if organisations continue to take a ‘head in the sand’ approach towards securing wireless networks, they are giving hackers the leverage they require to exploit the wider network infrastructure.
Egner continues, “hackers may only need minutes or days to infiltrate your corporate network. As organisations strive to reduce business disruption, it’s important to implement and integrate the necessary assessment tools to automate discovery and monitoring of wireless threats as part of the vulnerability management process. Many organizations we work with have delegated this problem to network engineers instead of treating it as the security problem which it is.”
About Outpost24
Outpost24 is a leading cyber assessment company focused on enabling its customers to achieve maximum value from their evolving technology investments. By leveraging our full stack security insights to reduce attack surface for any architecture, Outpost24 customers continuously improve their security posture with the least effort. Over 2,000 customers in more than 40 countries around the world trust Outpost24 to assess their devices, networks, applications, cloud and container environments and report compliance status for government, industry sector, or internal regulations. Founded in 2001, Outpost24 serves leading organisations across a wide range of segments including financial and insurance, government, healthcare, retail, telecommunications, technology, and manufacturing.