The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) has published guidelines for testers and vendors looking to check the efficiency and functionality of security products designed to protect Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
The Guidelines for Testing of IoT Security Products cover the principles for testing security products for IoT, recommendations on setting up testing environments, the testing for specific security functionality, and performance benchmarking.
The document encourages testers to focus on validating the end result and the performance of the provided protections and not to differentiate products based on their use of a technology or another, while also offering samples for IoT security solution benchmarking.
Furthermore, the guidance explains that IoT security products work differently compared to traditional products, typically by taking action without alerting the user, and recommends using an admin console during testing, or devices where the attack is visible or can be observed over a network.
The guidelines also recommend performing tests and benchmarks in controllable environments as much as possible, or validating results by running the same scenario with the security functionality disabled and checking the attack execution.
Testers are also advised to check different stages of an attack, including reconnaissance, initial access, and execution, and are provided with some platform-agnostic testing to consider. Considerations on performance benchmarking are also included in the guidelines.
“There isn’t much information and guidance available yet for the testing of IoT security solutions as it represents a relatively new category. However, independent benchmarking and certification of offerings in this space is needed to create benchmarks for users”, AMTSO board member Vlad Iliushin said.
As Viakoo CEO Bud Broomhead noted in an email to SecurityWeek, the rapid adoption of IoT has greatly expanded the attack surface within corporate environments. Unpatched vulnerabilities in connected devices may represent entry points for attackers, often leading to full network compromise.
“Threat actors are eager to exploit any crack in your defenses, including outdated passwords, firmware, or certificates. Because devices are so distributed and often of different makes and models, manually managing device security across multiple locations like cameras, kiosks, intercoms, and other equipment can be very difficult to accomplish at scale,” Broomhead said.
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