Why is it important to segment your network.

We live in a connected world, with more and more devices connecting to the internet.  We would often think nothing of in terms of what these "smart" devices do.  They just make our lives a little bit more convenient because we can control them from our phones.   

These smart devices are grouped together into something called the Internet of Things (IoT), because they are bespoke devices that have one purpose, the following are a few examples of interconnected or smart devices:

• Boilers and thermostats
• CCTV cameras
• Dishwasher
• Doorbells
• Smart plugs
• Smart lights
• Smart speakers
• Smoke alarms

Pretty much everything new that is electronic is designed with interconnectivity in mind, even cars and washing machines these days.

Every time you unbox a new bit of tech, it often asks to be connected to the internet so it can communicate with an app on your smart phone.

A question to ask yourself is, can you remember every device that is connected to your network, after all, a lot of things may have been connected over a period of time and it is often easy to forget what has or has not been joined to your network.

Convenience has a price

These interconnected devices are designed for your convenience, but this convenience comes with a price, and that price is that it could be opening up your network with gaping security holes, after all, do you know what operating system these devices are using, what issues they have, could someone take control of any of these devices and if they can, they are now connected to a device on your network, which means they could use it as a means to attack other devices inside your network.

Segment your network

One of the best thing you can do, especially with a wireless network, is to segment it into different uses.  Most people are familiar with a business wireless network and a guest wireless network, where the two are segmented.  This allows guests to connect to the internet without compromising your network security.

Modern wireless networks often support multiple SSIDs, meaning you can have multiple wireless networks, each segmented and separate from each other, without having them being able to communicate between them, each having a logical security barrier between them whilst at the same time, sharing the same internet connection.  This is done using something called network address translation (NAT), that allows different networks to share the same connection whilst being unable to see each other.

If you have a guest network, why not an IoT network?

If you are taking this much trouble to segment your network for security by having a guest network, why wouldn’t you do the same for all of the smart devices as well and give them their own secure, segmented network to use? 

This is why it is sensible to have an Internet of Things (IoT) network, dedicated to these devices only, so that if one is compromised in terms of its security, someone exploiting it, won’t be able to do much, keeping your business computers and data secure.

If you would like help segmenting your wireless so that smart devices have their own network, give us a call on 01722 411 999