Vaporized by Robert Tercek

Author:Robert Tercek
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781928055051
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2015-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

OVERCOMING SECURITY AND PRIVACY CONCERNS

There is no doubt that the first generation of IoT devices left a lot to be desired. Slate published an article with the title “Pretty Much Every Smart Home Device You Can Think of Has Been Hacked.” Hackers just need to find one vulnerability to compromise the whole network. Increasingly, IoT and smart devices look like the weakest link in the smart home. After all, many devices ship from the manufacturer with the exact same default password and no easy way to change it. Many devices offer no easy way to access security patches and software updates.

Against the background of hacking scandals and NSA intrusions, consumers are correct to be cautious. The complaints and concerns about IoT are useful market signals that tell manufacturers what issues need to be addressed in order to succeed. There are six big issues that the IoT companies must address.

1. Poor implementation of privacy-protection features, including unencrypted transmission of data from the device to the cloud.

2. Vulnerability to malicious hacking and intrusions by bumbling amateurs known as “script kiddies.”

3. Incompatibility and non-interoperability of software between devices from different manufacturers and competing alliances.

4. Proprietary systems, which will lead to “orphaned” devices that are no longer supported by software updates, instead of open-source software.

5. Barriers to easily downloading and installing software upgrades or security patches.

6. Lack of clear documentation about where the data gathered from the device is stored or how long it is kept.

Some of these issues are in the process of being fixed, but it’s also true that millions of devices being sold right now have serious vulnerabilities. Some of the companies making these early products will be acquired or go out of business or they may simply stop supporting the early models. And when that happens, there will be millions of orphan products left running in people’s homes, just waiting for hackers to take advantage of any security flaw that remains unpatched.

The lack of interoperability and open standards mean that there will be a lot of dead-end products. At present, no fewer than three industry consortia are duking it out for supremacy and it will take years for the IoT industry to settle on a common standard. In the meantime, millions of devices will be sold. If the software for these devices were open sourced, at least the developer community could take over writing the patches when those products are no longer supported. For proprietary software, however, there’s no way to get support once the manufacturer sunsets the product. The prospect of millions of zombie devices running on home networks is a security time bomb.

One of the problems that consumers are just finally beginning to understand is that we don’t really own our smart devices and IoT gadgets. At least, we don’t own them the way we own a book or a wrench. When we buy a smart thing, we may own the hardware but we don’t own the software. We are granted a license to use it. That’s different from ownership.

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