America’s Cyber Strategy Depends on Securing Networked xIoT Devices
The Hidden Attack Surface Running Critical Infrastructure
Across industries such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and data centers, organizations rely on thousands or even hundreds of thousands of connected devices. These include:
- IP cameras and access control systems
- HVAC and building management controllers
- Industrial PLCs and environmental sensors
- PDUs and UPS infrastructure
- Printers, IP phones, and facility devices
Unlike traditional IT assets, these devices often:
- run purpose-built firmware
- lack centralized management or monitoring
- cannot support endpoint security agents
As a result, they frequently operate outside the visibility and control of security teams.
Many run outdated firmware, default passwords, insecure configurations, or expired certificates. These weaknesses provide attackers with easy footholds inside otherwise well-defended networks.
Attackers understand this gap and increasingly exploit it to gain persistence inside critical infrastructure environments.
This is exactly the kind of exposure the Cyber Strategy is trying to eliminate.
Where Phosphorus Aligns with the Cyber Strategy’s Pillars of Action
The Cyber Strategy outlines several Pillars of Action designed to strengthen national cyber defense. Phosphorus enables organizations to operationalize many of these objectives at the connected device layer.
Pillar 1: Shape Adversary Behavior
The strategy calls for proactive defense:
“We must detect, confront, and defeat cyber adversaries before they breach our networks and systems.”
That starts with eliminating the easiest entry points by hardening devices. This serves dual purposes as it increases security and increases the adversary’s cost of an attack. Furthermore, if an adversary does penetrate the network, it significantly reduces the adversary’s ability to facilitate lateral movement and stealthy persistence.
Phosphorus enables organizations to secure their networked xIoT device attack surface by:
- Discovering and inventorying all xIoT devices across enterprise and critical infrastructure networks
- Identifying vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and end-of-life devices
- Detecting and disabling devices with components manufactured by adversary vendors, including those banned under NDAA Section 889
- Hardening devices through automated remediation, such as password rotation, firmware updates, certificate management, and configuration enforcement
- Continuously monitoring device state and risk posture
This lifecycle approach allows organizations to discover and assess, harden and remediate, monitor and manage networked devices at scale, dramatically reducing the attack surface available to adversaries.
The Supply Chain Risk Hiding Inside Your Network
One of the strategy’s most urgent priorities is securing technology supply chains and moving away from adversary technologies.
Congress addressed this through NDAA Section 889, which bans telecommunications and surveillance equipment from certain Chinese manufacturers, including:
- Hikvision
- Dahua
- Huawei
- ZTE
- Hytera
But identifying these devices in practice is far more difficult than most organizations realize.
Sometimes they are obvious.
We find cameras clearly labeled Hikvision. Surveillance systems clearly branded Dahua. Networking gear openly manufactured by Huawei.
But more often, they are hidden.
In real-world environments, we frequently discover devices that:
- are rebranded under Western OEM manufacturers
- have no visible manufacturer badging
- contain firmware originally developed by banned Chinese vendors
- appear legitimate but contain embedded components from restricted supply chains
Traditional discovery tools rely on MAC address or OUI lookups, which cannot reliably determine the true origin of a device.
Phosphorus takes a fundamentally different approach.
Through Intelligent Active Discovery, the platform interacts directly with device firmware to determine the device’s true origin, manufacturer, model, firmware lineage, and risk posture.
This allows organizations to uncover:
- overtly banned devices
- white-labeled devices manufactured by adversary vendors
- devices running banned firmware components
- equipment with hidden supply chain risks
Once identified, organizations can alert, isolate, or disable these devices, closing a critical gap in national cybersecurity defenses.
Pillar 3: Modernize and Secure Federal Government Networks
The strategy states:
“We will accelerate the modernization, defensibility, and resilience of federal information systems by implementing cybersecurity best practices, post-quantum cryptography, zero-trust architecture, and cloud transition.”
These modernization efforts are transforming IT security.
But connected devices remain a major blind spot.
Phosphorus extends modern security practices to xIoT environments by:
- providing high-fidelity device discovery and classification
- enabling automated credential management
- automating firmware lifecycle management
- enforcing secure device configurations
- replacing expired or insecure certificates
This brings the same operational discipline used for IT systems into the device layer of government and enterprise networks.
Pillar 4: Secure Critical Infrastructure
Another core pillar states:
“We will identify, prioritize, and harden America’s critical infrastructure and secure its supply chains.”
Connected devices sit at the heart of nearly every critical infrastructure sector, including:
- Critical Manufacturing
- Communications
- Hospitals and Healthcare Systems
- Financial Services
- Government Services
- Information Technology and Data Centers
- Transportation Services
Yet these environments often contain thousands of unmanaged devices.
Phosphorus enables operators to secure these environments at machine scale by:
- identifying every connected device
- detecting vulnerabilities and banned hardware
- hardening devices automatically
- continuously monitoring device state and risk
Instead of securing devices one at a time, organizations can reduce risk across entire device fleets.
Pillar 5: Sustain Superiority in Critical and Emerging Technologies
The strategy also highlights protecting emerging technologies:
“We will secure the AI technology stack—including our data centers—and promote innovation in AI security.”
But modern compute infrastructure relies on far more than GPUs.
Data centers depend on large ecosystems of connected operational devices, including:
- power distribution units
- environmental sensors
- HVAC systems
- management controllers
- surveillance systems
Compromising these devices can disrupt operations, enable lateral movement, or provide attackers with persistent access.
Phosphorus secures these environments by delivering deep device intelligence and automated remediation across data center infrastructure.
The platform is also pushing the industry forward through patent-pending AI-driven innovation, enabling autonomous device risk management across massive device estates.
The Path Forward: Securing the Devices That Run America
The Cyber Strategy for America recognizes an important reality.
Modern cyber defense requires protecting every system connected to a network, not just traditional IT assets.
Yet millions of devices operating across enterprises, government agencies, and critical infrastructure remain:
- unknown
- unmanaged
- unmonitored
These devices create ideal entry points for adversaries.
Phosphorus was built to eliminate this blind spot.
By delivering deep device discovery, supply chain visibility, automated remediation, and continuous monitoring, Phosphorus enables organizations to operationalize the Cyber Strategy’s objectives where they matter most:
the networked devices that run our infrastructure.
As the number of connected devices continues to grow, securing the xIoT ecosystem will become one of the defining challenges of modern cybersecurity.
It will also be one of the most important battlegrounds in defending America’s digital future.
