This is the 56th article in the award-winning “Real Words or Buzzwords?” series about how real words become empty words and stifle technology progress, also published on SecurityInfoWatch.com.
By Ray Bernard, PSP, CHS-III
Keeping IoT devices from compromising the cybersecurity of physical security systems
All-in-one RWOB
While IoT is a well understood term and is widely used correctly, it is applied uniformly to two very distinct categories of devices: legacy products that are connected to the Internet but remain highly vulnerable to cyber-attack, and devices that were engineered from the start to be IoT devices that are not only cyber-hardened devices but communicate securely over the Internet and maintain full data and remote control communications protection. This latter category of devices is referred to as IoT Native.
The Real Words or Buzzword series focuses on terms that – in the physical security industry – are commonly misused, misunderstood, incorrectly defined or aren’t broadly enough known and thus don’t shape our thinking in the ways they should.
The term IoT is well-known and well-understood, because it simply means all the “things” that are connected to the Internet that are not general purpose computing/networking devices, but rather are purpose-built devices that operate autonomously without an Internet connection.
The miniaturization of computer chips made it possible to add a small amount of narrowly-focused computing intelligence to purpose-built devices (washing machines, refrigerators, thermostats, and sensors) to give them one or both of two new capabilities: the ability to transmit data about themselves and the ability to be controlled or programmed remotely. As of 2020 there were 26.66 billion active IoT connections, more than double the amount of non-IoT connections. (Non-IoT devices include all mobile phones, tablets, PCs, laptops/notebooks and fixed line phones.)
Smartphones are not considered to be IoT devices because they are mobile phones that were given general purpose computing capabilities to make them essentially pocket computers with phone functionality, as opposed to getting intelligence that would simply make the phone functionality work better, provide data about the phone device, or enable remote control of the phone. The phones now include sensors that have nothing to do with telephony, but let them be used for taking photographs, providing map-based GPS navigation, and so on.
Video cameras are considered to be IoT devices because the intelligence added to them was for the purpose of improving their camera functionality, not to make them more like general purpose computers or give them non-video device functionality.
So, while IoT is a well understood term and is widely used correctly, it is applied uniformly to two very distinct categories of devices: legacy products that are connected to the Internet but remain highly vulnerable to cyber-attack, and devices that were engineered from the start to be IoT devices that are not only cyber-hardened devices but communicate securely over the Internet and maintain full data and remote control communications protection. This latter category of devices is referred to as IoT Native.
When the physical security industry first adopted Ethernet networking, it did so from the perspective that the security computers and devices would be the only things on the “security LAN.” The expectation was that instead of pulling coax or RS-485 cable, they would pull Ethernet cable.
Thus, most security devices weren’t “network friendly,” didn’t support the many existing network protocols, and worse – would crash if the device received network traffic it was not expecting. It took about a decade for standard IT networking practices to become part of the industry’s device design thinking.
As a result, the cyber-attack surface of most deployed physical security systems is extensive as are the device and system cyber vulnerabilities.
IoT Native
Although many physical security system devices, like network cameras, aren’t and won’t be redesigned from the ground-up to be IoT Native devices, they should take into account the key requirements for IoT Native devices, as that would drastically improve the cybersecurity landscape for electronic physical security systems. Many companies have applied some of these requirements. I believe that we can expect the industry to adopt them more widely in the near future. Until then, it is prudent to pay attention to them when purchasing networkable physical security system devices.
IoT Native Design Requirements
The following requirements are critical for IoT Native devices:
- Designed from the start to be IoT devices
- Cloud-managed including digital certificates
- Software and firmware updated automatically
- Certificate-based hardware authentication
- Certificate-based end-to-end data encryption
- Fully-Managed Digital Certificates
- Using only outbound cloud data center connections
- Refusing all inbound connections in a way that results in device operation being impervious to denial-of-service network attacks (although networks may not be)
- Able to perform their functionality with continuous, periodic or intermittent Internet connection
Some of the leading security video cameras can comply with the last requirement using SD memory cards in the cameras. But most often the recovery aspect of downloading the cached video data is not automatic.
Eagle Eye Networks’ video buffering appliances and recording appliances are IoT Native products. What’s more, Eagle Eye Networks takes things a step further by accounting for the fact that network cameras are cyber-vulnerable, and existing camera deployments may already have infected cameras. Thus, they have engineered their video buffering appliances, recording appliances and network switches to include firewall functionality that prevents malware-infected cameras from being able to spread infections into or beyond the appliance they are connected to.
Similarly, Brivo Systems access controllers are IoT Native devices. Brivo Systems and Eagle Eye Networks are the first companies I know of to design IoT Native devices and appliances.
As this is a changing landscape, with physical security industry companies becoming increasingly more cybersecurity aware, it is important to check these basic IoT Native requirements when considering upgrades to physical security systems.