The edge computing market is growing alongside solutions like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. The more internet-enabled, resource-intensive technologies there are, the greater the need for high bandwidth and low latency. However, the network’s periphery can be a dangerous place full of cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers. Information technology professionals must overcome these challenges to secure this ecosystem.
1. Expanded Attack Surface
In enterprise environments, the number of peripheral nodes is growing exponentially. It increased by 15% to 20% between 2024 and 2025 alone. Organizations find it challenging to secure this distributed architecture. Edge-related security incidents now account for 25% of all breaches, up from 18% the previous year.
Deploying hardware at the network’s boundary expands a company’s attack surface, making its perimeter vulnerable. To combat this, IT teams must introduce the highest possible level of network security among devices, users and servers.
2. Limited Ecosystem Oversight
Many companies don’t take cybersecurity seriously. A 2024 World Economic Forum report revealed the number that maintain minimum viable cyber resilience dropped by about 30% from 2023 to 2024. While large enterprises have experienced some gains, small and medium-sized businesses have demonstrated substantial decline.
This negligence is unacceptable, especially with edge computing. IT professionals have limited insight into this distributed architecture, complicating monitoring and incident response. They should prioritize logging all activity and conducting routine audits to ensure they don’t miss any indicators of compromise. Automation is helpful if they’re short-staffed.
3. Defenseless Physical Openings
Edge nodes seamlessly process data generated at the network’s periphery, reducing latency, optimizing bandwidth and enabling real-time applications. This distributed framework makes them powerful – and vulnerable. Physical tampering becomes a potential issue if no one is on-site to monitor hardware.
If no one from the internal team can be physically present – or paying a private security team is out of budget – companies can secure nodes via a surveillance system, alarms and internet-enabled motion sensors. A biometrics-based access control system will keep anyone with a stolen badge from entering areas they shouldn’t.
4. Compromised Edge Devices
In 2024, a cybersecurity firm called Mandiant – a subsidiary of Google – released a security report. It discovered 138 exploited vulnerabilities in the wild, 70% of which were zero-day weaknesses. What’s worse, the average time to exploit was just five days, down from 32 days the previous year.
Since this infrastructure is so distributed and expansive, identifying indicators of compromise can be challenging. If even a single rogue object infiltrates the network, IT teams might have to deal with service interruptions or data breaches.
Multifactor authentication can prevent bad actors from accessing accounts even if they have legitimate credentials, securing this ecosystem against hacking. Given that IoT devices are notoriously susceptible to tampering, strengthening weak authentication measures is essential. Today, deepfakes are sophisticated enough to bypass biometrics.
5. Third-Party Breach Risk
Many businesses rely on outside vendors to manage the complexities of edge computing. According to the IDC’s 2024 EdgeView survey, 36% aim to invest in managed edge services, while 49% plan to adopt solutions from cloud service providers. While this simplifies management, it can make them vulnerable to breaches. Vendor audits are crucial for mitigating security risks brought on by third parties.
6. Exposed Device Passwords
Many peripheral devices belong to the IoT, which is infamous for its lackluster security. Items often ship with default passwords and weak authentication measures. Unless someone makes some changes, they remain extremely susceptible to bad actors.
Default passwords and configurations that allow hackers to bypass administrator privileges have got to go. Robust passwords should be about 12 to 16 characters long and use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. Ideally, someone should change them every couple of months to secure the system in case of an undetected credentials breach.
7. Unguarded Data Transmissions
Data theft and loss are two of the most pressing security issues because backups aren’t typically an option. On-device backups take up too much space and are too computationally demanding. Whether a bad actor remotely injects malware or physically inserts a USB stick, they can copy, manipulate or delete information.
In addition to losing valuable or proprietary information, organizations must contend with the financial burden of compromises. A single breach costs $4.88 million, on average. To avoid this costly future, IT teams should implement a zero-trust architecture to secure data packets at rest and in transit.
8. Expansive Tech Sprawl
Tech sprawl can creep up on organizations, especially when they rely on multiple third parties. Typically, several separate, localized systems manage hardware at the network’s border, each with a narrow focus. For example, one may record transactions, while another controls security cameras throughout the premises.
Hyperconverged infrastructure is one of the best ways to mitigate tech sprawl. This cost-effective IT infrastructure combines computing, networking and storage into a single platform. It virtualizes the hardware-defined system, making it a software-defined one instead. This change provides streamlined data recovery and incident response avenues.
Overcoming the Security Challenges of Edge Computing
Replacing centralized cloud servers with a distributed architecture is an excellent way to lower latency and optimize bandwidth, improving customer satisfaction. However, these benefits are only possible without service interruptions and breaches brought on by bad actors. IT professionals should prioritize information security at every stage of deployment and use to mitigate physical and cyberthreats.
The post Overcoming 8 Challenges of Securing Edge Computing appeared first on Datafloq.
