TL;DR: If you connect it, protect it
How many IoT-enabled smart TVs, thermostats, webcams and appliances are hooked up in your home? And how secure are they?
October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NSCAM), it's a good time to revisit the risks these cool, connected devices pose and devise more robust strategies for protecting yourself against hacks.
IoT devices are dangerous because they essentially open up a bunch of new digital doorways into your family's personal data. Many of them don’t come with security already embedded, so you’re responsible for putting the proper protections in. NSCAM’s slogan this year – “If You Connect It, Protect It” – certainly applies to IoT.
If you don’t protect yourself, hackers have ready access to all the sensitive information (home address, phone number, passwords, credit card information, social media account log-ins, etc.) stored on these devices. They can also invade your home directly via an IoT hack, for example, by taking control of your security (IP) camera and spying on you.
This last scenario played out late last year in Mississippi when a hacker harassed an 8-year-old girl by taking control of the family’s Ring in-home camera. The family had been using the camera to check on the girl’s sister, who experiences seizures. But a hacker compromised the system and lured the 8-year-old into a conversation, saying he was Santa Claus.
In another scenario, an Avast researcher recently reverse-engineered an IoT coffee maker to show where ransomware could be uploaded to the m ..
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