Internet of Things: Best Practices for Users Who Own Connected Home Gadgets

The Internet of Things (IoT) is based on sensors and controls in different gadgets. When those different gadgets are used to create a smart home, they can give residents unprecedented control and insight. The proliferation of smart devices, however, also opens the door to new dangers and threats.

Remember when you’re installing a device in your home that it is really just a tiny computer. Even with something as simple as a smart light socket that you can control remotely with your phone, what makes that possible is the little computer in the switch that can talk to the Internet, and anything that isn’t secured on the Internet is fair game to hackers.

There are steps you can take to make cyber-attacks more difficult and to discourage the simpler attacks. Think of these steps as the connected home equivalent of putting locks on your doors and windows.

Be aware of the data each device can capture

Understand the sensors that are at play on each device in your home, so, for example, does your TV have a camera that’s facing out to the entire living room or the bedroom? Whenever you deploy something with sensors in your home, you’re raising your risk of unauthorized access. Make sure any cameras are pointed only at the specific areas you’re concerned about.

Make the most of the security features in the device

One of the major problems is that devices are deployed with some pretty insecure defaults. If you simply set up your devices with their default configurations, an attacker could use tools to find them and learn their passwords. You need to change the default passwords, and, if the device allows it, use a strong password with upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Some vendors can ship their products in an insecure configuration, but they will have built better security into the tool.

Keep your networks separate

A lot of modern wireless routers allow you to set up multiple access points off the same device. It definitely will never hurt to have one that’s dedicated for your home automation system, your TV connection, but keep a separate network for your computers and or phones. Give that network a separate password, so that if someone manages to steal your network password from your laptop, they won’t also get access to your connected-home devices.

Secure your networks

Configure your wireless router to make it invisible so that the associated Wi-Fi network cannot be found using automatic searching. Any user will need to know its name to make the connection.

Be careful about who handles your smart home network

Smart home device owners shouldn’t let unauthorized personnel touch them, especially the devices with USB ports. Watch out for scammers who offer to fix or improve your devices, or unauthorized shops that say they can repair it, but could instead compromise it.