While the Internet of Things (IoT) can provide helpful insights, it can also introduce a host of new security vulnerabilities into your organization. Without a clear understanding of the importance of IoT security, your organization will continue to introduce new vulnerabilities without even realizing it. Let’s take a closer look at how IoT security is important and the best practices your organization can use to improve the overall security of your organization.

From TVs to fridges to energy meters, more and more of the items we use every day are now smart devices. 87% of US households have at least one smart TV, up from 50% in 2014. And with ownership of smart speakers, thermostats, lights, and security systems also on the rise, it’s expected that smart homes will soon become the norm. This ever-expanding network of smart devices is known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

IoT is a network of interconnected devices, software, sensors, or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs), with the ability to transfer data over a network without the need for human interaction.

Businesses that incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) into their daily operations have rarely, if ever, had access to so many resources to help improve your customer reach, collect more personal data and reduce your internal operational expenses due to IoT automation. IoT devices are ubiquitous, and as technology advances, so does the invention and use of connected devices within workplaces and our homes.

By 2025, there will be 55.7 billion connected IoT devices (or “things”), generating almost 80B zettabytes (ZB) of data. These are just some of the statistics that underscore enormous opportunity in IoT—and the enormous security risks all those IoT devices create.

AT&T Alien Labs™ has been tracking a new IoT botnet dubbed “EnemyBot”, which is believed to be distributed by threat actor Keksec. During our investigations, Alien Labs has discovered that EnemyBot is expanding its capabilities, exploiting recently identified vulnerabilities (2022), and now targeting IoT devices, web servers, Android devices and content management system (CMS) servers.

Today at swampUP, our annual DevOps conference, JFrog CTO Yoav Landman unveiled the next step toward making the Liquid Software vision of continuous, secure updates a truly universal reality. We’ve introduced JFrog Connect, a new solution designed to help developers update, manage, monitor, and secure remote Linux & Internet of Things (IoT) devices at scale.