Basic security mistakes, such as weak passwords and unwanted firmware, expose smart homes to increased cyber risk, according to Bitdefender.
The latest security report, “The IoT Threat Landscape” and “Top Smart Home Vulnerabilities” of 2018, draws on data from BOX IoT security product and consumer interviews. The average home is now filled with 20 smart devices, with 95% of vulnerabilities residing in the firmware, the report says. 60% of users say they are concerned about identity theft, data theft and malware, but many fail to adequately protect their IoT devices. Six in 10 users said they had never upgraded their router firmware, a figure that fell slightly to 55% for smart TV owners.
Only 60% of smart device users reported that they have different passwords for each smart device, while half of smart TV owners admitted that they had never changed their password.
Although 30% worry that a hacker could gain access to a smart camera to spy on them, 70% have at least one camera connected to a vulnerable router, Bitdefender claimed.
The report also states that the BOX security product blocked 461,718 threats over a period of 30 days, with most of them (76%) coming from dangerous websites.
Threat analyst Bogdan Botezatu claimed that weak or single passwords for multiple devices, failure to patch, careless browsing by clicking suspicious links and attachments can open the electronic «front door» of the smart home to hackers.
However, the users are not the only ones at fault.
“Manufacturers of smart devices share responsibility for the current state of Internet security because most of them overlook the security aspect”, added. “In their haste to stay ahead of the competition, they leave many vulnerabilities for attackers interested in users' sensitive data”.
