Internet-connected, or IoT, devices now make up roughly 33% of infected devices, up from about 16% in 2019. These findings are based on data aggregated from monitoring network traffic on more than 150 million devices globally where Nokia's NetGuard Endpoint Security product is deployed.
According to the report, adoption of IoT devices, from smart home security monitoring systems to drones and medical devices, is expected to continue growing as consumers and enterprises move to take advantage of the high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and fundamentally new networking capabilities that 5G mobile networks enable.
Bhaskar Gorti, Nokia software president and chief digital officer, explained, “The sweeping changes that are taking place in the 5G ecosystem, with even more 5G networks being deployed around the world as we move to 2021, open ample opportunities for malicious actors to take advantage of vulnerabilities in IoT devices. This report reinforces not only the critical need for consumers and enterprises to step up their own cyber protection practices, but for IoT device producers to do the same.”
The report argued that the rate of success in infecting IoT devices depends on the visibility of the devices to the internet. In networks where devices are routinely assigned public facing internet IP addresses, a high infection rate is seen. In networks where carrier-grade Network Address Translation is used, the infection rate is considerably reduced because the vulnerable devices are not visible to network scanning.