Enhancing Digital Infrastructure for IoT Connectivity

Connection is the basis of most technological innovations. The modern world has raced to elevate its digital infrastructure to keep up with the growing demands of a rapidly evolving society. One of the pioneering elements of digital infrastructure today is the Internet of Things – or IoT. In this blog article, we explore the key strategies to improve IoT connectivity. We also take a look at some of the benefits of digital infrastructure for the IoT, the challenges facing IoT cybersecurity, and how Sangfor’s IoT security solutions can help out.

The Internet of Things can be defined as a network of connected devices that share, store, and analyze data. From smart homes and smart cars to appliances and other physical objects, these IoT-connected devices use their sensors, software, and network connectivity to share information in real time. For example, your Smartwatch can get notifications from your Smart home’s smoke detector if heat or air quality levels change.

Statista has revealed that the number of IoT devices worldwide is forecast to reach 29 billion in 2030. IoT-connected devices in the consumer segment take the lead with devices like smartphones. The number of IoT devices in this industry alone is forecast to grow to more than 17 billion by 2030. However, the Internet of Things is quickly expanding its reach across several other industries as well.

Manufacturing, education, health, and other industries are now turning to IoT connectivity to streamline production, improve efficiency, and ensure consistent evaluations. However, for an IoT network to thrive, you need to have robust digital infrastructure in place. While traditional setups have their uses, an effective IoT requires a scalable, innovative, and advanced digital infrastructure that can keep up with the massive amounts of data being processed.

The growth of IoT networks needs an interconnected and global response to enhance digital infrastructure for better capacity, latency, and processing demands. Organizations need to take a proactive stance to ensure key strategies are in place for the implementation of enhanced digital infrastructure. This will set the stage to enable seamless IoT connectivity. Let’s take a look at the current state of digital infrastructure today and how it supports IoT connectivity.

Can Current Digital Infrastructure Support IoT Connectivity?

The main concern for IoT connectivity in the current state of digital infrastructure is the sheer amount of IoT devices and the data that needs to be processed. By 2025, the total data volume of connected IoT devices worldwide is forecast to reach almost 80 zettabytes. This massive scale of processing demands an entirely new approach to digital infrastructure.

While existing and centralized IT architecture can provide a fraction of the required processing power needed, it is greatly limited in terms of flexibility, scalability, and latency. Some of the leading challenges for current digital infrastructure to support IoT connectivity include:

• Data Merging: IoT data is often collected from several endpoints in granulated, unstructured, and intermittent batches – which makes it difficult to compile and capture within a traditional digital infrastructure.
• Network Bandwidth: Many traditional setups don’t have the bandwidth to support the capacity of IoT data growth and expansion. According to the World Economic Forum, cellular networks are also a problem for IoT connectivity on a global scale. Contrasting mobile network operators cause issues within the connected IoT network. Global IoT solutions need to create agreements to connect people and companies through agnostic technologies.
• Security: IoT devices are often vulnerable to cyber-attacks since they tend to have limited protection. IoT security cannot also be guaranteed by older digital systems. In 2017, almost half a million St Jude Medical pacemakers were recalled by the FDA after hackers proved they could manipulate the battery, data, and other lifesaving settings. This proves how critical security for IoT devices can be.
• Latency: IoT devices depend heavily on fast data transmission. As a result, network latency delays responses from sensors and IoT software – making the IoT network ineffective.
• Expenses: Another massive obstacle to IoT connectivity is the sheer cost of implementation. While countries like China and the United States are investing heavily to accelerate their 5G network and cloud infrastructure rollout, other developing countries might struggle with their current digital infrastructure. This can be a major barrier for IoT applications.

A study done in India suggests that there were several barriers to IoT adoption for a food supply chain. These included complex frameworks, IoT affordability, lack of skilled personnel, and more. The study concluded that its findings could apply to other emerging nations as well.

While the current state of digital infrastructure might need to be pushed up a notch to facilitate effective IoT connectivity, we shouldn’t shy away from the several benefits of such a move on a larger scale – which we’ll cover next.

Benefits of Enhanced Digital Infrastructure for IoT Connectivity

Creating the ideal digital infrastructure for IoT connectivity comes with a host of advantages for several industries. Efficient IoT networks allow communities, corporations, and governments to advance and accelerate growth in multiple sectors – from social and economic to healthcare and technology. Some of the main benefits of enhancing digital infrastructure for IoT connectivity include:

• Improved Performance and Reliability of IoT Applications – With the right IT setup in place, IoT devices can connect faster, process data better, and elevate operations more efficiently. This improves how reliable IoT networks can be across industries – boosting production and manufacturing efficiency.
• Increased Security and Privacy Protection for IoT Devices and Data – IoT cybersecurity is a major barrier to proper implementation. Fortunately, an advanced digital infrastructure can ensure that data and IoT security risks can be easily mitigated through the use of elevated protection.
• Reduced Expenses and Complexity of IoT Deployments – With an enhanced digital infrastructure, the deployment of IoT networks can be streamlined, affordable, and easy. This can help speed up the usage of IoT networks globally – especially in developing countries that lack the funding, resources, and skills to facilitate the IoT framework effectively.
• Enhanced Scalability to Support the Ever-Growing IoT Ecosystem – IoT networks are essential for a developing IT ecosystem. Using enhanced digital infrastructure, IoT connections enable expansion, flexibility, and growth that can be used to further facilitate an evolving IoT industry.
• Accelerated Innovation in IoT-Driven Applications and Services – The growth of IoT services and applications can be streamlined and incubated in an advanced digital infrastructure. Using elevated technology, innovations in IoT connectivity can be explored, researched, and brought to life.

As mentioned before, IoT security concerns are a lingering obstacle for most implementations of the network framework. The limited security of the devices makes it especially difficult to deploy IoT systems. We’ll now take a look at some of the main challenges facing the implementation of IoT cybersecurity.

Challenges of Enforcing Robust IoT Cybersecurity

All modern digital infrastructure can be limited by cybersecurity concerns. Due to most IoT-connected devices being endpoints within a network, they are much more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Most IoT security companies will agree that the nature of the framework widens the attack surface for hackers. The main challenges facing the robust deployment of IoT security solutions include:

• Ineffective IoT Asset Management: The vast majority of IoT assets and data can be haphazardly stored, maintained, and managed. Many IoT devices have inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated information with IPs that are not standardized. This results in chaotic and ineffective security management.
• Weak Passwords and Encryption: Many IoT devices have severely lacking security protocols in place. From weak passwords and ineffective encryption, IoT devices are left completely open to hackers. This can lead to data breaches and operation disruptions.
• Multiple Networks: The use of multiple, integrated networks means that IoT devices are geographically dispersed. This means that existing firewalls and other security solutions cannot form an effective security boundary. Different IoT device manufacturers also lead to interoperability issues with silos of data that cannot be integrated and analyzed effectively.
• Expenses and Complexity: IoT cybersecurity software can be difficult for most companies to manage and deploy. The IoT security market can also be quite expensive for small or medium-sized companies to enter easily.
• Regulatory Restrictions: For many IoT devices, regulatory and legal data privacy policies can be challenging when trying to implement IoT security. These restrictions can vary in different countries and have hefty penalties for unwarranted use of personal data stored by IoT devices.

However, the Internet of Things is not going anywhere anytime soon. This means that companies and corporations need to find ways to invest in enhanced digital infrastructure themselves to elevate IoT connectivity. Sangfor is a leading cybersecurity and cloud provider that also ensures an impressive IoT security solution – let’s see how.

Essential Strategies for Enhancing Digital Infrastructure: Sangfor’s IoT Cybersecurity Solution

Sangfor's IoT security solution builds a comprehensive protection system that spans from the IoT front-end, access, and transmission to the back-end management platform. This helps to achieve trusted network access of front-end assets, secure connection of IoT terminals, and unified platform security management and control.

With an IoT security platform from Sangfor in place, your data protection and device integrity are guaranteed. Sangfor’s Internet Access Gateway (IAG) provides effective endpoint security compliance for IoT connectivity – download the brochure here. Enjoy complete protection with intelligent traffic control, endpoint detection and remediation, peripheral device, asset management features, and so much more.

Sangfor’s Endpoint Secure platform also provides advanced and automated web intrusion protection, ransomware protection, and malware detection to keep your IoT network secure from every angle. However, some of the main benefits of Sangfor’s IoT cybersecurity solution can be summarized in four points.

Advantages of Sangfor IoT Connectivity Solution for Cybersecurity

While Sangfor’s platforms offer a wide range of benefits for many companies, these are some of the main advantages of Sangfor's IoT cybersecurity solution:

1.IoT Asset Management

Sangfor’s IoT cybersecurity software helps to eliminate blind spots in the IoT environment. This allows users to effectively manage all connected assets – telling you the type and quantity of devices connected. This establishes a clear list of IoT assets and standardizes network management.

2.IoT Vulnerability Detection

Another benefit of Sangfor’s IoT cybersecurity solution is that it can scan and detect vulnerabilities within any connected IoT device and list them out clearly. This generated report can then be shared with the relevant departments and manufacturers to make the necessary rectifications.

3.Risk Management

The Sangfor IoT cybersecurity solution also goes on to help users manage and control IoT devices in a unified system. Any illegal network access endpoints will be automatically spotted and blocked to ensure the safety of the network.

4.Improved Incident Response

Lastly, the Sangfor IoT cybersecurity solution ensures that advanced threats - such as ransomware and high-risk vulnerabilities - can be handled remotely with one click. This will greatly improve the efficiency of responses to network emergencies.

While it’s useful to list the ways Sangfor’s IoT protection can be helpful, seeing it in action can be a lot more convincing. Let’s explore how Sangfor pioneered a way to secure IoT devices in the healthcare industry.

Sangfor IoT Security Solution Use Case: Medical Equipment Security

The healthcare industry can leverage IoT devices in several ways. From monitoring patients remotely to collecting real-time patient data, an IoT remote connection in healthcare has been a game-changer. Unfortunately, these interconnected lifesaving devices can also be vulnerable to cyber threats. This is why Sangfor was the first in its industry to propose a "four-steps-in-one" security management and control idea:

• Step 1: “Find out the Situation” – Using AI and asset identification, establish a hospital IoT equipment asset library.
• Step 2: “Discover Risks” - Uncover the vulnerability risks of the IoT medical equipment.
• Step 3: “Effective Control” – Provide access control and safety protection for all IoT medical equipment.
• Step 4: “Closed-Loop Processing” – Combine platform and component one-click processing to improve efficiency within a secure and isolated environment.

The Sangfor IoT cybersecurity solution helps hospitals build and improve medical equipment safety. The comprehensive protection system also allows medical equipment to have “visible and controllable assets, visible and closed-loop risks, and timely early warning and blocking of security incidents.”

Effective IoT Connectivity Through Advanced Digital Infrastructure

The Internet of Things is showing no signs of slowing down in the next few decades and we need to update our digital infrastructure to keep up. The IoT can only be as effective as the architecture we use to facilitate it. Despite the many challenges we’ve discussed, the benefits of effective IoT deployment are considerably larger and crucial to creating a better future. Technology needs to be proactively and consistently evolving to create the environment for IoT connectivity to thrive.

Companies – whether small or large – can in their capacities enhance their digital infrastructure by embracing innovative platforms and expertise. This will benefit individual organizations and set the stage for easier IoT connectivity, cloud computing, 5G deployment, and many other breakthrough technologies – creating a new, exciting world brimming with possibility.

Sangfor Technologies is a global leading cloud computing and cybersecurity company that is dedicated to ensuring efficient and secure digital infrastructure. Contact Sangfor today to learn more about our cloud computing and cyber security solutions.

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