Cloudflare's New Orbit Solution For Device Manufacturers Secures Internet Of Things Devices

Security company Cloudflare has launched a new system for securing Internet of Things devices – aimed for the device manufacturers themselves.

Orbit provides a new approach to security so IoT manufacturers can configure their devices to connect with the internet through Cloudflare's network – so if there is a vulnerability, manufacturers can easily patch it without having to "brick" or shutdown the device.

’The PC-era model of on-device security didn’t work very well for PCs and definitely won’t scale to protect the Internet of Things,’ Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said. "Orbit… can scale to meet the needs of an increasingly networked world."

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According to Cloudflare, its new solution uses its firewall in the cloud to catch exploit attempts like Distributed Denial of Service attacks – protecting devices that are running vulnerable code.

Orbit also authenticates devices to trace whether they actually belong to a user's network and are not a malicious hacker trying to infiltrate the IoT infrastructure.

Prince said that the Orbit system is currently protecting more than 120 million IoT devices for early-adopter device manufacturer customers. Lockitron is one such company working with the company to better secure its products.

’Keeping our products and customers secure is our primary concern,’ said Paul Gerhardt, co-founder of Lockitron, in a statment. ’Cloudflare provides an extra layer of security that allows us to keep our devices continually updated and ahead of any vulnerabilities.’

IoT security has been in the spotlight since a major denial of service attack was launched in October through Internet of Things consumer devices, including webcams, routers and video recorders, to overwhelm servers at Dynamic Network Services (Dyn). That led to the blockage of more than 1,200 websites.

The attack on Dyn, which connects users to websites such as Twitter and Netflix, came from tens of millions of addresses on devices infected with malicious software codes, knocking out access by flooding websites with junk data.

"[Orbit] is a great and clever solution for IoT device manufacturers, and is certain to gain adoption," said Marc Harrison, president of Silicon East, a Marlboro, N.J.-based solution provider specializing in IoT building automation security.