2 min Security

‘Shadow IoT major threat to corporate networks’

‘Shadow IoT major threat to corporate networks’

Infoblox publishes a new study this week that points to a significant threat to corporate networks by the Shadow IoT. This consists of devices that are part of a company network, but of which this is not known. For the report What’s Lurking in the Shadows, 2,650 IT professionals were interviewed in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates.

The Shadow IoT consists of network devices and sensors used within an organisation without the IT division’s knowledge. Shadow IoT can consist of a wide range of different technologies, from laptops and mobile phones to tablets or intelligent speakers that are simply not managed by the IT department. The study shows that over the past 12 months, 80 percent of IT professionals have found such Shadow IoT devices on their network. Worldwide, almost a third (29 percent) found more than 20.

According to the Infoblox report, in addition to the devices deployed by the IT team itself, numerous other devices are connected to corporate networks around the world. Think, for example, of personal laptops and smartphones.

Policy

Ninety percent of IT professionals are particularly concerned about the use of Shadow IoT devices in branch offices and branch offices. To address the threat of Shadow IoT on the network, 89 percent of worldwide organisations have established security policies for personal IoT devices. Although most respondents have confidence in that policy, that confidence varies greatly by region. In the Netherlands, 58 percent call their policies “very effective”, but in Spain, for example, only 34 percent of respondents do.