If you have one of these…
Or this..
Or even this…
You need to start thinking about cybersecurity.
Sure, IoT devices can make your home, household, and even health much easier to manage.
But have you stopped to consider that it can harm you too?
Here are three ways IoT security can and has gone wrong.
If you have a kid, or even a pet, a baby monitor is a great way to keep an eye on them.
A camera to give you a view of what’s happening, a mic to hear what they’re up to, and maybe
even a speaker to keep them in check.
Well, what if the voice from your baby monitor isn’t the one you recognize?
This is what happened to a family in Mississippi when an intruder hacked their home camera
and started speaking to an 8 year-old, asking her to destroy her stuff.
The terrified daughter started yelling for help.
And they were far from the only ones whose cameras got hacked.
Sounds like a nightmare, right?
Well, the Ring home security camera is far from the only IoT device to have terrifying
vulnerabilities.
Back in 2017, the FDA recalled half a million pacemakers due to cybersecurity fears.
The administration found that would-be attackers could drain the pacemaker’s battery, and
even deliver shocks that could kill the patient.
Similar life-threatening vulnerabilities were found in insulin pumps.
If a hacker took control of the device, they could mess with the medication dose, or show
false medical readings.
And it doesn’t end there.
Appliances, smart TVs, even your car can be vulnerable.
What if all of these devices were taken over at the same time?
That’s what happened in 2016 when a distributed denial-of-service attack left much of the
internet in the US and Europe slowing to a crawl.
The culprit?
Mirai — a giant network of infected IoT devices that turned into remotely controlled
bots.
Creating a botnet wasn’t difficult — many of the IoTs taken over still had their default
usernames and passwords.
Hundreds of websites, including Reddit, Github, Airbnb were inaccessible for hours and the
internet of entire countries slowed down.
These stories illustrate the big picture problem that affects most smart devices — they aren’t
actually that smart.
Most internet-connected devices have pretty low processing power.
This means that a smart light bulb or fridge probably won’t come equipped with encryption
Different devices also use different protocols to communicate like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and
NFC, so making one unified security standard is a challenge.
Another issue is the factory settings — even if the IoT device comes with a password, a
lot of the time it’s something like “admin” or “password” aaaaand it’s not always
possible for the user to change.
And if you don’t have a password?
Well then you might find your security camera on Shodan — a search engine for unsecured
devices.
Worst of all?
A lot of people don’t seem to care.
A while ago, NordVPN did some research on IoT security.
Nearly 9 out of 10 people have at least one IoT device in their homes, with the most popular
being routers and smart TVs.
But just over 35% changed the default password on their router or other smart devices.
And the average percentage of people who have a VPN on their router?
Just 19.6%.
So what can you do to protect your home?
Do your research.
Make sure the device has proper security features and settings in place.
Change the default passwords.
Set up a VPN on your router.
This way you can protect the devices that don’t support a VPN.
Create a separate network for your IoT devices.
Some wireless routers let you set up guest networks so a potential hacker wouldn’t
be able to gain access to all of your devices at once.
Keep your firmware up to date.
Manufacturers release security patches, so keep your IoT updated.
Don’t forget — if it has an internet connection, it can get hacked.
Are you gonna do anything about it?