By: Bryan Lechner, Director of Policy, HPE Aruba Networking.
The world is getting hotter every year. I personally understand people sweating all day in the US, Southern Europe, and Northern Asia. The cooling is regularly stopping working to cool them down. And let’s accept the reality that nobody wishes to operate in hot weather; even if we do, we are not 100% effective. That may be the reason office are centrally air-conditioned, to maintain the optimum working temperature for staff members, and to supply prescribed conditions for servers.
However what does any of this pertain to Network Access Control (NAC)?
Excellent that you asked. I have an interesting story for you.
The rise of IoT devices and their impact on network security
A couple of years back, I had actually 98 devices connected to my house network, which’s simply for 2 of us. (Well, this consisted of a few VM servers, but we still can’t deny the reality that we were surpassed by IoT devices.) When it struck me, I began lowering the IoT devices, but I still had 35 devices on my house network: 2 laptop computers, 2 smart phones, 2 tablets, watch, tv, fridge, voice assistant, thermostat, video camera, and so on. My HPE Aruba Networking workplace had even more IoT devices running on the network: printer, TV, meeting room scheduling pad, security video cameras, thermostat, and so on.
My point is IoT is flooding our networks, both personal and corporate, and we are heavily dependent on these IoT devices to function as normal. Statista claims that there will be 29 billion IoT gadgets in 2030. The human population would still be 8.5 billion by then (according to the United Nations); that takes the Human: IoT ratio to 1:3.5
Now that we have established that our lives function better due to the fact that of these IoT, let me share another anecdote. This one relates to a HVAC system. A fast search on Wikipedia yields the definition: “Heating, ventilation, and cooling (A/C) is making use of numerous innovations to manage the temperature level, humidity, and pureness of the air in an enclosed space.” These are the ventilator tubes running across the facility to keep the center cool. Heating and cooling is among the most critical systems on the network due to the fact that it continuously works to keep you cool when it’s 38C (100F) outside.
In 2015, for two of my customers, the heating and cooling system stopped working out of no place. Among the customers was in the middle of summertime in the United States Southwest, and the other remained in December in a Northern State (so they froze instead of boiled). Upon further troubleshooting, the customers found that a random gadget had struck the network controller, and the heating and cooling system didn’t understand how to deal with it, so it started detaching from the network until it was power cycled, or the network connection was reset physically. Although the IoT thermostats installed throughout the structure were alerting a/c to turn the a/c fan up, the innocent a/c couldn’t. Soon it was 38C outside and 31C inside (for my first customer). The servers were getting closer to thermal shutdowns, and the workers were getting irritated, all because a random connection reached part of the network that it should not have, leading to a 15-year-old controller on the heating and cooling shutdown.
The takeaway from this …
