Symantec – Insecurity in the Internet of Things – Mario Ballano Barcena, Candid Wueest, March 12, 2015.

“The Internet of Things (IoT) market has begun to take off. Consumers can buy connected versions of nearly every household appliance available. However, despite its increasing acceptance by consumers, recent studies of IoT devices seem to agree that “security” is not a word that gets associated with this category of devices, leaving consumers potentially exposed. To find out for ourselves how IoT devices fare when it comes to security, we analyzed 50 smart home devices that are available today. We found that none of the devices enforced strong passwords, used mutual authentication, or protected accounts against brute-force attacks. Almost two out of ten of the mobile apps used to control the tested IoT devices did not use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt communications to the cloud. The tested IoT technology also contained many common vulnerabilities. All of the potential weaknesses that could afflict IoT systems, such as authentication and traffic encryption, are already well known to the security industry, but despite this, known mitigation techniques are often neglected on these devices. IoT vendors need to do a better job on security before their devices become ubiquitous in every home, leaving millions of people at risk of cyberattack.”