Nokia recently released their industry-leading Threat Intelligence Report, revealing an alarming rate of growth in mobile device malware infections and detailing massive DDoS Attacks, which could have serious implications for IoT security.

And while security is by its nature multi-faceted, with vulnerability points in the mobile devices themselves, in the applications running on those devices, in cloud hosted applications, and more – where it makes sense to look hardest, now, is in the network itself.

In their report, issued at the end of last month, Nokia’s security lab shared data on the now infamous Mirai DDoS attack in the second half of 2016, and shared a long list of tools in the Mirai arsenal.

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IoT Security Has Become A Major Concern

Issued twice per year, the Nokia Threat Intelligence Report examines general trends and statistics for infections in devices connected through mobile and fixed networks around the world. In their announcement, Kevin McNamee, head of the Nokia Threat Intelligence Lab, said: “IoT security has become a major concern. The Mirai botnet attacks last year demonstrated how thousands of unsecured IoT devices could easily be hijacked to launch crippling DDoS attacks. As the number and types of IoT devices continue to proliferate, the risks will only increase. Nokia’s network-based security can help address this growing threat by detecting activity before a DDoS attack occurs, enabling service providers to take corrective actions that mitigate the impact.”

While mobile attacks grew exponentially, the sort-of good news as reported by Nokia is that fixed network infections continued to decline. The monthly infection rate in residential fixed broadband networks averaged 10.7 percent in the second half of 2016, down from 12 percent in the first half, and down from 11 percent in late 2015, which is evidence that applying stronger security policies inside the network does help address continuing threats including bots, rootkits, keyloggers and banking Trojans.

The Nokia Threat Intelligence Report aggregates data from deployments of the Nokia NetGuard Endpoint Security (NES) network-based anti-malware solution, and analyzes traffic patterns from within service provider networks for evidence of malware infections in more than 100 million devices worldwide, including mobile phones, laptops, notepads and a an increasing range of IoT devices as IoT, IIoT, and IoT security continues to grow in popularity.

NetFoundry’s network architecture delivers a high level of security based on the session splitting and routing technologies enabling our unique platform to spin up highly secure private networks over the public Internet. Because these networks are often created and managed based on specific applications, including IoT and IIoT large scale systems, NetFoundry’s AppWANs embed security software that makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible for attackers to penetrate given a much tighter edge and connectivity to multiple clouds (public, private and hybrid).

Interested in learning more about NetFoundry and IoT security? More information is available here.

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