IoT device monitoring involves the continuous tracking and management of connected devices in an IoT network. It allows organizations to collect real-time data on device health, performance, and security, ensuring the smooth operation of their IoT infrastructure. By monitoring IoT devices, organizations can proactively identify issues, detect anomalies, and take necessary actions to prevent potential disruptions. In this article, we will explore what IoT device monitoring entails and how the NMIS suite of network management solutions can enhance this process. 

Understanding IoT Device Monitoring 

In today’s interconnected world, the Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized how we interact with technology. IoT devices, ranging from smart thermostats and security cameras to industrial sensors and wearables, are transforming industries and providing valuable data insights. However, when these are part of the corporate environment, managing and monitoring these devices at scale can be a complex task. This is where IoT device monitoring and management comes into play, helping organizations effectively oversee their IoT ecosystems and optimize network performance. 

Benefits of IoT Device Monitoring 

1. Improved Performance: Monitoring the performance of IoT devices enables organizations to identify bottlenecks, optimize resource allocation, and enhance overall network performance. By proactively addressing performance issues, organizations can maintain a seamless user experience and maximize operational efficiency. 
2. Predictive Maintenance: IoT device monitoring enables predictive maintenance by analyzing device data and identifying patterns that indicate potential failures or maintenance requirements. This approach allows organizations to schedule maintenance activities in advance, reducing downtime and optimizing resource utilization. 
3. Scalability: As IoT networks grow, managing an increasing number of devices becomes challenging. IoT device monitoring provides centralized control and visibility, allowing organizations to scale their IoT deployments without compromising network performance or security. 
4. Cost Optimization: By monitoring IoT devices, organizations can gain insights into device usage patterns, power consumption, and other performance metrics. This information can help optimize resource allocation, reduce energy costs, and extend the lifespan of devices. 
5. Enhanced Security: IoT devices can be vulnerable to cyber threats, making security a top priority. IoT device monitoring provides visibility into device behavior and helps detect any suspicious activities, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of data transmitted by these devices. 

Integrating NMIS for IoT Device Monitoring 

The NMIS suite of network management solutions offers a comprehensive platform to monitor and manage IoT devices seamlessly. NMIS provides real-time monitoring, event correlation, and configuration management capabilities, empowering organizations to oversee their entire network infrastructure from a single interface, including IoT devices. Let’s explore how NMIS can enhance IoT device monitoring: 

1. Real-Time Monitoring: NMIS enables organizations to monitor devices in real-time, capturing critical performance metrics, such as network bandwidth, latency, and device responsiveness. This real-time visibility allows organizations to quickly identify anomalies or performance issues and take prompt action. 
2. Event Correlation: NMIS leverages advanced event correlation algorithms to analyze data from IoT devices. This capability helps IT teams focus on actionable events, reducing alert noise and enabling efficient incident response. 
3. Configuration Management: NMIS simplifies the management of IoT device configuration by providing a centralized repository. It allows organizations to track configuration changes, enforce compliance, and quickly restore configurations if needed. This feature ensures consistency and reduces the risk of misconfigurations that could impact device performance. 
4. Network Discovery: NMIS offers network discovery capabilities, allowing organizations to automatically discover and map their IoT devices. This feature eliminates the need for manual device inventory and ensures comprehensive visibility of the IoT network, facilitating effective monitoring and management. 

IoT device monitoring plays a crucial role in managing and optimizing the performance of interconnected devices. By leveraging the power of IoT device monitoring, organizations can enhance security, improve performance, enable predictive maintenance, scale their deployments, and optimize costs. As the world becomes more connected through IoT devices, it is essential to have robust monitoring solutions in place. NMIS provides the necessary tools and features to monitor and manage IoT devices effectively, enabling organizations to harness the full potential of their IoT ecosystems. 

Whether you are a telecommunications carrier, a large enterprise organization, or an IT Managed Service Provider (MSP), investing in IoT device monitoring with NMIS can yield significant benefits. It empowers organizations to make data-driven decisions, improve operational efficiency, and provide a seamless user experience. Speak with our team to see our software in action, or download a free trial and try it yourself.  

IoT device management is a process to ensure that all your IoT devices are properly configured, secure and working as intended. If you’re not already using an loT device management solution, then it’s likely that your organization has experienced some negative consequences due to poor security practices or misconfiguration issues.

These can include: 

• Increased risk of data breaches 
• Loss of productivity due to downtime caused by technical failures
• Costs associated with manual troubleshooting and maintenance

IoT Device Management Platforms 

There are several IoT device management platforms, but one of the most popular is OpenWSN. It’s an open-source platform that allows you to create your own software for IoT devices. The TinyOS operating system aims to make it easy for developers to build applications for embedded devices and sensors. Contiki OS is another popular choice among developers because it has been used in some big-name projects like the Mars Rover and Google Glasses. 

The downside of these platforms is lack of commercial support, not an ideal situation considering the mission critical applications of IoT. 

IoT Device Management Software 

IoT device management software allows you to monitor the status of your devices and configure them. It also allows you to update firmware, change settings, and more. This can be done from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, which means that if something goes wrong with one of your devices or systems at home or work, it can be fixed immediately. 

IoT Device Management Architecture 

The IoT device management architecture consists of two main components: 

• Device Management System (DMS) – The DMS is responsible for managing the lifecycle of your IoT devices from initial deployment through retirement. It also provides a central repository for all information related to your IoT devices, including configuration data and logs. This allows you to easily manage and monitor thousands of devices across multiple locations in real time with just a few clicks. 

• Asset Management System (AMS) – The AMS is responsible for collecting data from various sources such as sensors, meters, controllers or other types of devices that are connected via industrial communication protocols like Modbus/TCPIP etc., into one single point where they can be accessed by different users across different departments within an organization such as production managers who need real-time updates on their production lines; quality assurance engineers who need access to test results so they can take appropriate measures if any issues arise; finance teams who want insights into production costs etc., without having knowledge about specific technologies used within each departmental silo! 

Security Requirements for IoT Device Management 

• Malware: Malware is a type of software that can be used to damage or disable computers and other electronic devices. It’s often installed without the owner’s knowledge, so it’s important to have up-to-date antivirus programs running on your IoT devices. 
• Antivirus Program: Antivirus programs are designed to prevent malware from infecting your computer or device and destroying its data. They also scan for viruses after you install them, so you should make sure your antivirus program is always running on all of your IoT devices (and not just when they’re connected to the Internet). 
• Backups: You should back up all the data from each IoT device regularly–at least once per day if possible–in case something happens to the original copy (like someone deleting it accidentally). 

The Benefits of IoT Device Management 

FirstWave’s NMIS is a solution that offers many benefits to IoT device management. Here are just some of the ways it can help: 

• Remote management: The ability to manage your devices from anywhere in the world, even when you’re not physically at your office or onsite with them. This gives you peace of mind, knowing that in case something goes wrong with one of your devices, you can fix it easily without having to travel somewhere else. 
• Efficient provisioning: Using FirstWave’s NMIS allows you to quickly deploy new devices onto networks and get them up and running as soon as possible–without having to worry about whether they’ll work properly once they’re plugged into their new environment.  
• Enhanced security: A secure connection between each device ensures that no unauthorized users have access while also preventing data breaches from occurring due to hackers breaking through firewalls.   
• Improved performance: With this solution in place, there’s less chance for errors because all settings will be standardized across all systems; this means less downtime due better performance overall! 

How FirstWave’s NMIS Can Help 

FirstWave’s NMIS can help you with: 

• Device discovery. The first step in any IoT device management solution is to discover all your devices and understand who they belong to, what they’re doing, and where they are located. Our solution makes this easy by automatically discovering all the devices on your network or in the cloud that have been registered with us. 
• Real-time monitoring. Once we’ve discovered all of your connected assets, we provide real-time visibility into their performance so that you can quickly identify issues before they become problems–and resolve them before customers notice anything has gone wrong! 
• Customizable dashboards & data analytics tools allow users at every level of an organization access real-time information about their IoT deployments without needing any specialized knowledge or training on how best utilize these tools effectively (which means less time spent dealing with IT issues). 

Conclusion 

If you’re interested in learning more about how FirstWave’s NMIS can help your organization to better manage and monitor IoT devices, reach our to our expert team for an obligation-free consultation.

From the CEO, Danny Maher 

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Sustainability in Space event, hosted by Boeing in partnership with Aerospace Xelerated, Advance Queensland, and Queensland Government this week. I was invited to discuss the history of our organisation and our involvement with NASA and their Artemis mission. This was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how our two organizations have been better together, and how our software has been made better for all clients on the back of it.  

For decades, NASA has been at the forefront of space exploration, pushing the limits of human knowledge and capabilities. However, this pursuit of discovery and innovation requires a vast network of technologies and systems to ensure the safety and success of missions. Among these technologies is network monitoring and real-time alerting software, which NASA requires to manage everything they deploy and to detect and predict faults before they become critical issues. 

In the search for such software, NASA turned to FirstWave (then Opmantek, prior to the acquisition and rebrand), as a leading provider of network monitoring and real-time alerting software solutions. NASA’s requirements were stringent, and their mission-critical environment demanded the highest levels of performance and reliability. Our NMIS software (Network Management Information System), was an ideal match for NASA’s needs. 

NMIS provides a comprehensive suite of network monitoring and alerting tools that help organizations of all sizes manage their network infrastructure proactively. It is able to collect real-time data from any device, allowing for true visibility and insights within complex environments, like those running NASA’s Artemis mission.  

Thanks to the collaboration with NASA, FirstWave was able to take the lessons learned and apply them to enhance the NMIS software suite for all our clients. The custom features and enhancements that were implemented for NASA are now standard features in the latest version of NMIS, benefiting all users of the software. This has resulted in better network performance and reliability, improved visibility into network faults, and more streamlined and efficient network management for all clients. 

Moreover, the collaboration with NASA has given FirstWave a significant boost in credibility, particularly in complex and mission-critical environments. Having a client as respected and demanding as NASA has helped FirstWave build a reputation for excellence and reliability, attracting new clients in the private sector who demand the same level of performance and reliability. 

The benefits of this collaboration are not limited to the private sector. NASA has also benefited significantly from the custom enhancements made to NMIS. By having access to real-time network analysis and prediction capabilities, NASA has been able to prevent potential disasters by aborting launches or taking corrective action before issues become critical. This has ensured the safety of astronauts and equipment, as well as the success of critical missions. 

Blog post by Mark Unwin, Feb 2023

Recently we have been asked the question – why do you consider Open-AudIT more secure than other similar programs? As with most things, the answer is “it depends”.

Open-AudIT can be operated in such a way as to be extremely secure. But as usual with computer-based security, the more secure you wish to make something, the more inconvenient it becomes to use. The old phrase “the most secure computer is one that is turned off and in the cupboard” comes to mind.

Below we will outline some options that can be used with Open-AudIT that will increase security. Like most items within Open-AudIT, these are options and not mandatory. How far you take security is up to you.

On-Premise, Not Cloud

Open-AudIT can be run on your server in your data center. It does not need access to the internet at all. Even the installation on Linux where we use the distribution package manager for our prerequisites can be negated by you using an in-house and security team-approved package repository.

Open-AudIT does not store any of your data in the cloud. Even licensing information can be provided without having to access the internet from the Open-AudIT server.

Sure, it is easier to allow it to access the internet to download packages (including security fixes) for your distribution, but that’s up to you and your security policies. Open-AudIT does not need the internet.

Open Source

Open-AudIT Community source code is available on GitHub. You are encouraged to inspect any code you have concerns about, and because it is open source – you are also encouraged to ask us about any issues you have or report any findings. We are always more than happy to accept code contributions, vulnerability reports, or even simple questions. We’re here to help.

The audit scripts themselves (Windows, Linux, MacOS, et al) are deliberately written in readable native shell script (VBScript for Windows, Bash for *nix). You can see exactly what commands are run. You can remove any commands you feel you don’t need. You can ask a third party to inspect the code for you and (if you want to) report any findings.

Open-AudIT Enterprise uses Open-AudIT Community as its engine. Enterprise instructs Community what to do (in most, but not all cases). So you can read exactly what happens when a discovery is run (for example). In the cases where Enterprise itself does the heavy lifting, if you are concerned with any issues Firstwave is happy to work through them with you – just ask! Try that with another commercial software vendor!

Agent? Discovery? Credentials?

So you have an issue providing Open-AudIT credentials to discover your devices. I have an answer – don’t then! Sure, I mean, discovery is the best thing since sliced bread. You don’t need to know ahead of time “What’s On Your Network”. But how can you extract data from devices without providing credentials?

In the case of computers, an easy option is to copy the appropriate audit script to the target machines and set it to execute on a schedule. More details on the wiki. The machines will send their data to Open-AudIT on that schedule, almost as if you were running discovery. There is no “agent” that asks Open-AudIT what to do (although we do have plans for that – stay tuned). The device simply runs the audit script on a schedule (again, you can read the audit script) as the user you tell it to and sends the output to the server. No credentials are involved at all.

What about other “network devices”? Think switches, routers, printers, etc. Obviously, it is best if you can provide some SNMP credentials for these devices. They only need “read-only” access. But if you don’t want to do even that, there’s nothing stopping you from running discovery, finding the devices, and making a rule or two to identify them. You won’t have much information, but you’ll know they’re on the network, what they are, and when the last time they were seen was. You will also see if anything new appears on the network.

And if something goes wrong?

The audit scripts all accept a debugging argument. You can run the script utilizing that and see in more detail what the issue is. And if you can’t figure it out – that’s what we’re here for! Open a support case and we’ll get things running in no time.

Open Data

And lastly, not so much a security issue – more peace of mind. The data structures are open and documented. You can even view them inside the application. Your data is your data. You can extract it any time you like. We even helpfully provide exports to CSV, JSON and XML. And we have a JSON API. And you can write custom reports and have those output in CSV, XML, and JSON! Again, it is your data – not anyone else’s. You can be confident that the security of your data is in your hands.

Wrap Up

I hope this post has alleviated any concerns you have about Open-AudIT and Security. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us here at FirstWave. We’re always happy to discuss your concerns and needs. And maybe if your question isn’t something I’ve addressed here, I can add it here for future users 

The devastating string of recent data breaches highlights the need for organizations to step up their efforts to minimize human errors that give malicious cyberattackers a foot in the digital door.

The number of cyberattacks against Australian organizations continues to climb, with the Australian Cyber Security Centre receiving more than 67,500 cybercrime reports in the 2020-21 financial year, a jump of nearly 13 per cent from the previous financial year. The increasing frequency of cybercriminal activity is compounded by the greater complexity and sophistication of their operations. The accessibility of cybercrime services – such as ransomware-as-a-service – increasingly opens the market to a growing number of malicious actors without significant technical expertise or sizeable financial investment.

At the same time, the average cost of a cyber data breach in Australia continues to rise – totaling $US4.24 million, or $US180 per lost or stolen record, according to IBM’s 2021Cost of a Data Breach report.

While zero-day vulnerabilities and high-tech exploits are always a threat, many cybersecurity attacks still rely on tried-and-true social engineering tricks that take advantage of people’s trusting nature. A third of all attacks included in IBM’s report were attributed to phishing attacks or stolen/compromised credentials.

While organizations can invest in security awareness training, at the end of the day it only takes a single lapse in concentration from one staff member – opening an infected attachment or clicking on a malicious link – for an entire organization to be compromised.

Prevention is the best cure and ensuring that such malicious emails never reach the inbox of their intended targets is the best approach. Multiple layers of protection must work in unison, rather than putting absolute faith in one particular technology, tool or policy.

As part of this multi-layered defense, organizations also need to take advantage of highly automated intelligent software designed to automate security more efficiently and effectively than people or standalone tools can do alone. Automation can handle repetitive tasks, improve efficiency and reduce risks introduced through human error.

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is underestimating the impact that the average user can have on their security, says Danny Maher, CEO and managing director of cybersecurity-as-a-service provider FirstWave.

It is easy to make the mistake of focusing security spend and efforts on the IT department, Maher says, without stopping to consider that every single person in the organization presents a potential attack vector.

‘‘It could be your IT manager, it could be your receptionist, but the impact to the business is severe no matter who clicks on the wrong link, so they all deserve your attention,’’ he says.

‘‘With FirstWave’s platform, establishing carrier-grade protection takes only a few minutes and is very low cost, making world-class security accessible for every organization.’’

Danny Maher

‘‘The majority of attacks are coming via malicious emails. You may have thousands of employees, and try your best to educate them with cyber awareness training, but it only takes one person to make a mistake and you’re in a world of hurt – the best defense is to block the email before it even reaches them.’’

In January 2022, FirstWave acquired Opmantek, a leading provider of enterprise-grade network management, automation and IT audit software, to add to its portfolio of service provider-grade email and web security products. FirstWave’s software is used by Microsoft and a host of Australian corporations, government departments and telecommunications providers. Organizations of all sizes and technical capability require access to security, ensuring spending is proportionate to the risk and is delivering appropriate protection against threats, Maher says.

‘‘It’s well established that the majority of attacks are coming via email and that is why we launched service provider-grade email security in a cloud-based offering,’’ Maher says.

‘‘It is accessible to everyone with nothing to install; you simply need one person in your organization to sign up and pay a trivial amount of money per user per month. It’s about providing easy access to a high level of protection for every organization at the click of a button.’’

The challenges of ongoing geopolitical uncertainty mean that every Australian organization is under threat and must take action on their security.

‘‘Whether we want to admit it or not, Australia is caught up in a cyberwar where every organization is a target,’’ Maher says.

‘‘Generally speaking, the perpetrators are not launching a frontal attack against your firewall, they’re attacking via email. With FirstWave’s platform, establishing carrier-grade protection takes only a few minutes and is very low cost, making world-class security accessible for every organization.’’

Originally published by Australian Financial Review (AFR) on 31 October 2022.

Providing visibility & answering Executive questions

Enterprise Services Monitoring is a major enhancement to FirstWave’s industry-leading network management platform (NMIS) that is designed to provide monitoring and alerting systems that put the focus on business performance rather than technology.

The Enterprise Services Monitoring extension to NMIS’ infrastructure visualization platform, opCharts, re-imagines monitoring for IT networks and services and allows administrators and management to monitor and provide alerts based on the genuine business impacts, while drilling down for root cause identification in a single click.

But what does it mean and how does it work?

The Challenge: Where do you start looking when something goes wrong in your organization?

Modern organizations rely on networked applications to succeed. In these complex environments, with multiple connected devices working together to support your applications, how do you maintain visibility of all of these critical services, and the infrastructure they depend on?
Enterprise Services monitors a collection of resources delivering customer and business services, such as:

• Customer-facing website or portals
• Business critical applications or SaaS tools
• Service Provider network solutions to customers

The Solution: Single-click root cause identification of issues.

Enterprise Services improves business outcomes through reducing mean time to resolve (MTTR). It monitors the service end-to-end, not just node or devices health, and saves the pain-staking process often required to bridge the gap from service impact to root cause.

• One-click drill down to identify root cause
• Real-time representation providing context to your complete network
• Real-time monitoring and alerting of service status, not just node or device health
• Top-down view, rather than traditional bottom-up

If you want to see the power of single-click root cause identification and understand how FirstWave can help you reduce MTTR, reach out to our team for a personalized demo today.