If you’re responsible for the health of your company’s network, you already know the pressure that comes with every new device that touches it. AV has become one of the biggest blind spots in modern IT environments, and the fear is real: all it takes is one unmonitored codec, one poorly secured display, or one unmanaged AV-over-IP endpoint to introduce a vulnerability that puts your entire organization at risk. And when a breach happens, it’s rarely the vendor who gets blamed. It’s you.

But here’s the part most leaders never see coming: the biggest risks often don’t start with malicious actors. They start with rushed deployments, shadow IT decisions, half-documented systems, or an AV integrator who installs hardware without aligning it to your security policies. And somewhere in that chaos, someone in the C-suite wants the install done fast, Facilities wants it to "just work," and your team is expected to secure it all.

There’s a moment every IT leader encounters, a moment when a seemingly harmless AV upgrade exposes a gap no one anticipated. What happens next depends entirely on what you put in place long before that moment arrives.

For many years, organizations of all sizes have understood the necessity of protecting internet-connected computers from viruses and hacks. What hasn’t been as well understood or addressed is IoT security – securing non-computer connected devices from threats. Why is that? 

Historically, devices not based on general-purpose computing operating systems like Windows were thought to present, in security parlance, less of an attack surface. These systems might have been proprietary or based on open-source systems like Linux, where the development community could see and shore up potential attack points. The attack surface widened considerably in the Internet of Things (IoT), where all devices become "smart" with Internet connectivity to one or more cloud services. Add the ability of many devices to be accessed and controlled by publicly available APIs, and everything is now a computer – and vulnerable. 

What does that mean for AV devices like cameras, microphones, room control systems, and more? These are all now IoT devices, and the intelligence derived from their cloud connectivity makes them as vulnerable to threats as any Windows or Mac laptop. How do you improve IoT security for AV devices in your Phoenix, AZ organization? Keep reading for four general strategies below. But spoiler alert – these are similar to what you do with other connected platforms.