Security is becoming a critical differentiator in embedded system products across a wide range of applications.
And the tools are now available to ensure products can be more secure without sacrificing time-to-market and, in some cases, even accelerating development.
Those are key takeaways from this year’s Embedded World Exhibition and Conference that took place in Germany last week.
The motivation of hackers sometimes can be plain as day. Other times, not so much.
As attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) devices and deployments escalate, it is important to understand what these attackers are trying to accomplish. Understanding these motives, after all, can help us to pinpoint why a security vulnerability represents a risk, to prioritize mitigation and defenses, and to focus responses to attacks.
It’s perhaps the longest standing myth in IT:
You can deploy IT quickly, or you can deploy it securely. But you can’t do both.
This supposed trade-off touches virtually every aspect of IT, from product development, to market release, to customer deployment, production product maintenance, and all associated stages.
As the flood of vulnerabilities continues to rise, attention is turning to how embedded system products can be made more secure.
Almost 20 years ago, the concept of security by design was a popular new trend in software development. The focus on baking in security at product design stages was driven by the massive rise in on-line applications, e-commerce features and other Internet-connected, web-enabled software.
As these systems and applications were deployed and became widespread, the expanding attack surface made them attractive targets for attackers looking to steal user information and financial data. So naturally the industry’s response was to rethink and reinvent security in the new threat environment. That meant defining best practices for creating more secure applications at the design stage.
Security of smart devices is getting worse, says a penetration testing expert, who blames suppliers of connected devices that ignore security and privacy issue notifications.
Is the answer more security regulations and laws, or is it better product strategy?
Patch management remains a major headache for enterprises, according to researchers and security experts. With reported security vulnerabilities now climbing into the tens of thousands each year, busy IT departments struggle to identify and analyze the vulnerabilities that apply to their systems, and to manage all the patching needed to mitigate risks.
And the Internet of Things (IoT) poses even greater challenges for patch management.
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