Stanford and Avast researchers analyzed user-initiated scans of 83 million IoT devices in 16 million homes and found three big truths you don’t often hear about
The Internet of Things is a panoply of ingenious new devices making our future more convenient and sophisticated – until the machines turn on us and the whole thing comes crashing down.
At least, that’s the narrative that often plays out in popular culture. Research and the media can also reflect this view of a sprawling variety of sophisticated devices all making up one big connected network. The problem is, that’s not really what the Internet of Things is like in real people’s actual homes.
Researchers from Stanford University and Avast analyzed user-contributed scans of 16 million homes and 83 million devices. The researchers found three big truths about the security of smart devices that you almost never hear about.
There isn’t one Internet of Things – there are many
The types of IoT devices that are commonly found in homes varies greatly from region to region. Surveillance cameras are most popular in South and Southeast Asia, while work appliances, such as printers and fax machines prevail in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and home assistants are present in 10% of homes in North America but have yet to see significant adoption in other markets. The security of IoT devices also varies greatly in different regions, the researchers found by examining devices’ open services, weak default credentials, and vulnerability to known attacks.
A small group of vendors dominates
More than 90% of Internet of Things devices are made by just 100 manufacturers, and the researchers found that security safeguards from just a few vendors could have ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
