First I love IOT devices. They are helping many people and in general are taking the world forward. I have written code for smart watches and medical devices that are helping to save lives. The only problem I have with IOT devices is security. If I get the serial number of my neighbors internet connected garage door I can open his garage door from anywhere in the world. You might think it is neat to connect that thermostat or that coffee maker to the internet but what happens if a corrupted firmware update goes out and the device becomes the bridge to hack every computer in your house or business? Crap that is scary…a bad actor could hack a medical device and kill someone. My IOT coffee maker runs xwindows, it is a linux kernal so it would be a great platform for a bad actor to attack every internet connected device in my house. Using my wifi router I built a network to prevent this….do you have one of those?

“If your IOT devices are connected to your main wifi network stop what you are doing right now and pay attention.”

My solution is to create a third network on my wifi router (network segmentation) and use that just for IOT devices. You could also put all your IOT devices on your guest network and keep you sensitive stuff on your main network. Just don’t allow sharing between the IOT network and your other networks. Yes this is not perfect and one hack (you need good security everywhere)…the better long term solution is for vendors to secure their updates via blockchain technlogy to prevent rogue firmware updates.

Secure Your IOT