802 Secure: The Shield for the IoT Ecosystem

Michael Raggo, CSO

The Internet of Things (IoT) has spawned a plethora of various devices used across consumers, enterprises, and industries, leading to a new paradigm littered with new risks and threats. The proliferation of smart devices enables IoT networks to run autonomously in the enterprise or managed network wherein different business units deploy their own solutions for various purposes, resulting in “Shadow IoT.” However, the alarming question that arises here is “What would happen if any of these IoT networks or devices were hacked?” Wireless surveillance systems are major targets for hackers to either intercept, infect, or disrupt communications, thus creating a blind spot for the physical security team. Adversarial IoT threats such as spy cameras, WiFi Pineapples, and drones also present a nearby threat to organizations. Like Shadow IoT, none of these devices connect to the enterprise network, and thus the network and security teams are oblivious to the threats. Further, drones can pair to mobile devices, allowing a greater level of interactivity between the two. Despite the endless benefits and possibilities that drones bring to the table, one cannot turn a blind eye toward the potential damages they can inflict on a person or organization if used for malicious purposes.

Taking these crucial points into account, Michael Raggo, the CSO of 802 Secure shares his insights into how their company has been able to harness the power of cloud-based drone detection solutions to strengthen the security backbone of businesses.

Could you shed some light on the current challenges in the drone technology landscape?

We are working with CIOs and CISOs at prisons, casinos, and critical infrastructure to name a few and these organizations want a deeper level of forensics intelligence to assist with identifying the perpetrator using the drone for nefarious purposes. Identifying the presence of a drone and its location is only the first step in their mind. They want better intelligence about who is flying the device. When we identify the mobile device flying the drone and other nearby radio frequency (RF)-emitting devices such as cell phones or smart vehicles with WiFi or Bluetooth, we’re able to develop a broader forensic picture during the incident. This can be tied back to video feeds, physical security visuals of the perpetrator, and a timeline of every event during that time-frame.

Can you give us some insights into your core solutions and how they work?

Our cloud approach allows autonomous sensors to be deployed at the customers’ premises without connecting to their network and offers comprehensive real-time visibility into their broad IoT environment, including nearby threats such as drones.

A cloud-based SaaS Analytics engine, AirShield is 802 Secure’s offering for monitoring, assessing, and fortifying customer IoT environments with ingenious drone detection, forensic, and analytic capabilities. There are two components of the solution—the on-premise AirShield and the cloud. The on-premise AirShield allows organizations to listen to and visualize all the radio frequencies through the entire spectrum of the enterprise wireless networking ecosystem, which facilitates the monitoring of the performance, reliability, and security of the existing wireless networks and communications. Utilizing innovative technology around a Software-defined Radio (SDR) within the AirShield sensor, one can get a broader picture of the plethora of IoT protocols and frequencies to determine the devices deployed in a customer environment and the ones nearby. This helps clients identify any possible threat or risks to their environment. Besides, we leverage a learning model that allows us over time to learn about the device as it is communicating.

Through deep packet inspection and listening to those devices, we can better decipher what they are. AirShield also assists in monitoring the security posture of the IoT devices and networks while diagnosing if they are being exploited as attack vectors.

Our cloud approach allows autonomous sensors to be deployed at the customers’ premises without connecting to their network and offers comprehensive real-time visibility into their broad IoT environment, including nearby threats such as drones

A part of the AirShield sensor, AirDecoy is an IoT and wireless deceptive networking leveraged by 802 Secure to lure adversaries into it. It’s an open fake WiFi network, established within the client environment, which people can connect to and in the process, it helps in revealing any potential hacking activities or tools on the network yet is in no way connected to the customer network.

What are some of the aspects that make your solutions standout?

What sets 802 Secure ahead of other competitors is the extension of its broad wireless visibility through SDR wherein if a drone is WiFi-based, it can not only discover the drone but also pinpoint the mobile device that’s paired to the drone for flying it. This is an essential piece of the forensic puzzle when determining the who, what, when, and where of drone intrusions. The ease of deployment of 802 Secure’s solutions is another point that adds to the merit of our company. Each sensor is equipped with an LTE cellular card that communicates back to the cloud. Simply plug it in and within minutes, one gets visibility into the wide IoT environment, which also encompasses drones. Moreover, our learning model allows us to clearly identify devices beyond their MAC address, enabling us to decipher additional characteristics about the wireless communications and determine if the device is a DJI Drone, LG Refrigerator, Siemens heart monitor, or Johnson Controls thermostat.

Would you like to share a client success story where 802 Secure helped them mitigate their challenges?

One of our clients—a large casino—successfully overcame a plethora of IoT problems, including drone activity utilizing 802 Secure’s AirShield solution. Our company helped the casino identify drone activity, along with the mobile device used for flying it and the individual’s location, almost daily in the portion of the property that is off limits to customers, where the HVAC, Power Distribution, and Generators are located. In this case, the drone was tied back to a smart vehicle parked along the fence. This allowed the casino to go back to the video feeds, get the license plate, and identify the perpetrator.

What does the future hold for your organization?

Currently, 802 Secure is highly focused on the US market but expanding into Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Moreover, our company has extended its solutions to smart cities to provide visibility and fidelity around adversaries within a city and their activities.