How to Protect Connected Home Devices and Appliances from Cyber Attacks

Security is a requirement for all consumer IoT devices, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. By adding a few basic capabilities, the security of any device can be significantly increased.

David West, Dec. 13, 2016 – 

In July of 2014, HP Labs did a study of 10 popular IoT devices and found security was shockingly bad. The researchers studied 10 devices, looking at end-to-end security capabilities including privacy protection, authorization, encryption, user interface protection, and code security. They found 70% of the devices had at least one major vulnerability.  At the end of their study, researchers identified over 250 vulnerabilities, an average of 25 per device.  Security was clearly an afterthought or not considered at all. That's bad enough for an engineer to deal with, but much worse for the unprepared consumer.

An average consumer, or even a security savvy consumer, has little ability to know which brand of IoT device has better security or any at all, leaving the primary responsibility for securing their devices squarely with the OEM. A compromised consumer device may have little impact on the device's performance and the consumer may not even realize their device was hacked. Should the OEM care? 

Absolutely! On the surface, the hacked device may seem benign. But a device, like a smart refrigerator, may reveal WiFi credentials to a hacker giving them a beachhead from which they can then attack other more critical devices on the network. So, it's about more than just protecting the device itself.

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