Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Connected devices are powering transformation in every sector, whether it’s smart meters in energy, robotic arms in manufacturing, or infusion pumps in healthcare. But alongside innovation comes risk. More than 50% of connected devices have a known vulnerability, and with security breaches in IoT rising year over year, it’s no longer enough to bolt on protection after the fact.

In 2025, the regulatory environment for connected devices is shifting rapidly, with the regulatory landscape evolving due to new policies like the EU NIS2 Directive and related frameworks. As the risk of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and IoT ecosystems increases, organizations face significant security challenges in this evolving environment.

IoT and unmanaged devices are some of the toughest blind spots for security teams today, and attackers know it. That’s why we’re excited to team up with Armis — an expert in device discovery and risk assessment — to bring its real-time device data right into Elastic Security. By combining Armis’s rich telemetry with Elastic Security’s analytics, ES|QL querying, and Elastic AI Assistant, analysts get the full picture of their device landscape.

As the world becomes more interconnected, the nature of national security is evolving, bringing new challenges and opportunities in cyberspace. It’s no longer just about physical borders—it’s about digital infrastructure, critical assets, and public-private partnerships, with businesses of all sizes impacted by these changes in strategic cybersecurity.

In today’s hyperconnected landscape, the security of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is no longer optional—it’s essential. With over 50% of connected devices harbouring critical vulnerabilities, securing IoT devices is an important challenge for organizations. Traditional manual methods of securing and managing device identities are insufficient.

In April 2025, the UK government released its Cyber Security & Resilience Bill policy statement—marking a major overhaul of the UK’s cyber regulations. This introduces sweeping changes that will resonate deeply with IoT/OT device operators and manufacturers alike.

Device onboarding encompasses the entire process of integrating new IoT devices into an organization’s network infrastructure, from initial discovery and authentication to configuration management and ongoing monitoring. This process becomes exponentially complex as device populations grow and diversify. Traditional onboarding approaches often rely on manual configuration, pre-shared keys, or simple certificate-based authentication that requires significant human intervention.

Policy-based identity management transforms security administration from individual device and user management to comprehensive policy frameworks that automatically govern identity lifecycle, access controls, and security enforcement across entire IoT ecosystems. The key elements of policy-based identity management include defining user roles, managing user access, implementing identity governance, and leveraging role based access control to ensure appropriate access and compliance.

As the number of IoT devices and connected devices continues to surge, IoT security has become a critical component of the modern IoT ecosystem. Ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data across IoT networks is essential to protect against cyber threats and data breaches. With billions of devices now connected to the internet, the attack surface for malicious actors has expanded dramatically, making robust security measures more important than ever.