Technology
Your ‘Smart’ Home Devices Can Easily Be Hacked
(CBS) – The “smart” home may not be quite as clever as you think.
With the arrival of the so-called Internet of things — where household items such as thermostats and washing machines and webcams are connected to the global network — security problems may also be on the rise. A study from security research company Synack found that commonly connected products opened up a host of safety issues. One of the firm’s analysts noted it took him only 20 minutes to break into a range of devices, according to GigaOm.
The study comes amid heightened concern about hackers and the vulnerability of everything from credit cards to automobiles. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) issued a report this month warning about the dangers of hacking attacks against vehicles. In the Synack study, the only device that didn’t have a major security flaw was a Kidde smoke detector, which wasn’t actually connected to the Internet.
“Right now the ‘Internet of things’ is like computer security was in the nineties, when everything was new and no one had any security standards or any way to monitor their devices for security,” Synack security research analyst Colby Moore told GigaOm.
