As someone with an interest in both tech and cybersecurity, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify wanting IoT implementations at home. While having all your lights and appliances controlled by a single device is quite interesting, if breached, that same control ends up in the hands of anyone with bad intentions, and that's not even considering the privacy implications.
38 defects were recently found by multiple vendors in Wireless Industrial IoT devices. These defects offer a remote entry point for attack, enabling unauthenticated adversaries to gain a foothold and potentially spread to other hosts, causing significant damage.
Such an attack on an individual would be quite rare, any bad actor would need to target you specifically. But for a business, even a single point of failure can end up costing hundreds of thousands.
Which begs the question: is trading automation for manual labour a good trade-off, security-wise and financially? Manual work carries higher internal threat risks, while IoT is more vulnerable to external threats. Neither option is without risk, it comes down to understanding your threat model and making an informed decision.
Originally published on LinkedIn.