Internet of things and data security

The rapidly growing market for the Internet of things and the data security for such devices is an issue that must be addressed sooner rather than later.

Today, we have doorbells, boilers, TVs and even children’s toys that have joined the list of smart devices, not long after the smart mobile industry paved the way.

Home security cameras are also increasingly popular these days, and while we use such products for the purposes of security and convenience, what about data security? Is the data security of the Internet of things being left behind?

An inescapable fact is this: the more entry points you have to a network, the more vulnerable the network can be.

Take an average modern household today. You may have a family of four where the parents are equipped with smart phones, and the children are using tablet devices for games and play that are also connected to the network, as are some of their “smart toys”.

One of the parents may have a pace-maker that’s also a smart device that can feed medical data back and forth and can be remotely activated.

The house is equipped with a sentry doorbell and cameras that all link to the parent’s mobile phones and the network. The boiler is smart and can be accessed remotely, as are light switches, air scent diffusers, energy meters, and there’s an internet-connected “AI” assistant on-hand as well.

It’s all connected; but is it secure? Will all this lead to increases in data breach compensation claims?

Data security is often a backseat thing when it comes to a lot of organisations. This means we cannot safely assume all our smart devices are as securer as we would expect them to be.

Hackers are finding huge value in attacking smart devices and the Internet of things nowadays. Aside from using them as part of huge worldwide DDoS attacks, they only need just one of these devices to not be secure enough to then be able to break into the whole network.

There goes your home security; all because a children’s toy wasn’t secure enough…

There are already class action compensation claims in the US over the Internet of things and data security. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some in the UK soon as well.