Adding Smart Security to Smart Buildings

Architecting new construction and retrofitting older ones as smart buildings is clearly the wave of the future, and the proliferation of IoT devices to help make these buildings smart will only continue to increase. By some estimates, the Smart Building Market will be worth more than $31 Billion by 2022. The reason for this impressive growth is evident in the potential for smart buildings to drive collaboration and productivity, safety and security and reduce costs for building managers and the companies that own and operate the structures. That’s one of the main reasons why from Apple to Microsoft, Smart buildings and Smart campuses are all the rage. One under-reported benefit that these tech giants get all too well is that smart buildings also draw top talent and curve the impulses to leave a job.

Yet, there’s a twist in how smart and wonderful smart buildings can be, and that’s with security. Because as smart as IoT-enabled buildings are, the security of the IoT devices within these buildings gets a D+ grade at best!  The brain and spinal chords of smart buildings are IoT devices. They monitor all the areas and systems, respond to pre-registered parameters, and report out when needed. They are the eyes and ears and nose of the building, and yet, they weren’t designed to be safe from cyber attacks. As a result, they have become vulnerable to hacks and have become an attractive entry point for access to the entire network that they are connected to.

Make your IoT Security as Smart as the Building

In order for the architecture firms and construction companies designing smart buildings to mitigate the risks created by IoT devices, they need to:

1. Have an accurate assessment of how many and what kinds of IoT devices are attached to the building networks.
2. Have visibility into those devices down to the component and application levels to understand if items like the firmware have changed or need to be updated.
3. Have an understanding of what those devices are doing to identify any anomalies and suspicious activities.
4. Integrate with the IT security in place in order to monitor and mitigate IoT breaches.

Finite State believes that those charged with designing and constructing smart buildings also need to understand the implications and risks involved with deploying IoT devices across the building networks.  And just as companies provision computers and phones, they should also baseline risks posed by these IoT assets. Our platform provides a look inside IoT devices as if they were any other endpoint on the network, exposing hidden firmware vulnerabilities while proactively mitigating IoT risk.

The Finite State platform empowers your company to proactively mitigate IoT risk. With our platform, you can conduct threat hunting operations within your IoT networks, permitting IT security teams to monitor for indicators of compromise using our robust traffic analysis capabilities.

The smart buildings industry may just be getting started with IoT, but with Finite State, they can stay secure and protected every step of the way.