Avaya, on Wednesday announced a new solution that helps companies mitigate cyber attacks that can occur through IoT connected devices. A unique, security and management solution, Avaya Surge - formerly SDN Fx Healthcare - runs on any vendor’s network to enable companies in any vertical industry to protect valuable data from unauthorized access through IoT devices.

Attacks and breaches resulting from IoT devices are expected to escalate over the next several years as more and more connected devices offer entry points. Currently, most approaches to the issue are rife with complexity, expensive and resource intensive, such as using thousands of mini firewall instances to reach thousands of deployed devices, or using Network Access Control for IoT security. Both approaches have limited scalability and effectiveness.

“Security is the Number One issue facing growth of IoT. Unless this is solved in a practical manner, limits on innovation, digital transformation and productivity will soon be reached. Avaya Surge is the easy, practical, cost-effective and proven solution that companies need as they expand IoT strategies and deployments and move their organizations forward,” said Marc Randall, SVP and GM of Avaya Networking.

"What we saw in our research with early Avaya Surge adopters was a complete elimination of hands-on IT staff time in installing or moving networked medical equipment -- anyone could plug a new device into the network and move devices from place to place, confident in the network's ability to secure them properly. Some were expecting to also reduce wiring and switching costs in medical spaces, by as much as 60%, through elimination of 'color-coded-by-VLAN' wiring practices; others were anticipating reducing the number of firewalls deployed in their LAN environments by as much as 97% through use of Avaya Surge," said John E. Burke, CIO and Principal Research Analyst of Nemertes Research

“The overall security of clinical devices and information is paramount to Novant Health. The trial we are working on now with Avaya should address the encryption aspects required of these platforms and will reduce the overall time spent in deploying and maintaining these Novant devices. We are interested in Avaya Surge IoT Solution so that we can increase the speed of our business and network security deployments,” said Rob Hale Manager – Infrastructure of Novant.

"IoT security is becoming a major concern for our organization. At the same time, we are concerned that the nature of securing so many devices will be complex and expensive. We have trialed the Avaya Surge solution and believe that it will enhance our IoT security toolset without further complexity,” said Ben Vickers, Director of IT at ProMedica.

Avaya Surge now offers an alternative that significantly reduces complexity and cost while dramatically improving the process of tightly securing and managing thousands of devices. Avaya Surge simply pairs the IoT edge device with a small adapter to make it an intelligent network node through which it can centrally control security and management.  Once implemented, Avaya Surge delivers the following core capabilities:

• Secures - HyperSec zoning is the technology set that creates encrypted zones and enables Surge to isolate and filter traffic from device to destination. IoT devices are less visible and protected from harmful traffic such as viruses and malware. Traffic flows are filtered on a white-list basis, limiting what the device receives and sends and to who or what it communicates.
• Automates - Providing the elasticity needed for securing the everywhere perimeter, Avaya Surge uses centrally-set, “Follow-me” profiles applied on a by-device basis. When disconnected from the network, profiles disappear. When re-connected, profiles are automatically re-assigned.
• Learns - Avaya Surge automatically learns and updates from traffic flows, providing continuous, ongoing security improvement. The solution also reports asset utilization that details the operational activity of devices. In addition, the solution offers programmable APIs to enable organizations to customize services and applications.

Avaya Surge will be available through Avaya Channel Partners in the second quarter of 2017.