SMART, NOT SECURE

Experts have been talking about IoT safety for years, but safeguards are lagging.

Experts have been talking about IoT safety for years, but safeguards are lagging

COMPANIES IN INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) PAINT A pretty picture for potential consumers. With every household contraption in sight getting connected to the Internet, we humans need not do much, it seems. Your virtual assistants and gadgets will team up to open the smart blinds in the morning, turn on the radio to wake you up, set the coffee machine working, start heating your bath water and suggest what you should eat for breakfast. As millions of companies are involved in selling all the supplies your gadgets will order, you are more than eager to hasten this scenario so that they do not lose a single day of business.

The connectedness goes on throughout the day. Alexa calls out your car and warms or cools it until you step in. Also, if you own something top-of-the-line, your vehicle will do a whole lot of things on its own (such as driving you around while you sit and relax). At work, too, you can voice-command both people and gadgets only to take up where you left off back at home. But the trillion-dollar question is: How safe are these connected gadgets?

IoT watchers joke that even your toaster needs a firewall. And unfortunately, that is only too true. In the initial days of IoT and smart homes, it was thought that the lack of uniformity — common standards and platforms — was hindering the implementation of strong security measures. Today, experts believe it is probably that lack of cohesiveness that is saving users’ devices from being attacked as fast as they could have been in a different scenario. With a playground featuring so many variations, hackers have to work twice as hard to target users en masse. But in time, it can happen, or as some analysts say, it will happen. Everything from smart toys to baby monitors to fridges, smart electricity and water meters, home security systems, lights, thermostats, water heaters and toasters can get hacked and commandeered. What hackers will do with the access is anybody’s guess and depends on their agenda, but anything from demanding a ransom to causing physical harm and everything in between could be a possibility.

Moreover, there is a growing realisation that gaining access to one device would soon open up access to a multitude of similar devices. Eventually, your smart lock could stop responding to you, locking you in or out; your fridge could hand over bank or credit card information to miscreants instead of paying your grocery shop; your water geyser could heat up to dangerous levels, or your electricity and water could be summarily cut off.

Because the agenda of the IoT companies is so strong and urgent, they are fast laying the ground for selling products and services. Users, too, should actively seek secure solutions before hackers and malware invade their smart homes.

WITH A PLAYGROUND FEATURING SO MANY VARIATIONS AND LACKING COHESIVENESS, HACKERS HAVE TO WORK TWICE AS HARD TO TARGET USERS EN MASSE