Many companies are leaving major security flaws in the wake of their hurried attempts to penetrate the smart home market, producing products riddled with bugs and unpatched vulnerabilities, according to a new report from ABI Research. "Ignoring cybersecurity at the design level provides a wide open door for malicious threat actors to exploit smart home products," the firm said in a statement.
"We see an alarming increase in ransomware in smart TVs and IP cameras, code injection attacks, evidence of zero-day threats, and password eavesdropping for smart locks and connected devices," ABI's Dimitrios Pavlakis says. "The current state of security in the smart home ecosystem is woefully inadequate. Smart home device vendors need to start implementing cybersecurity mechanisms at the design stage of their products."
Numerous attack vectors have been identified in popular smart home communication protocols, such as ZigBee, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi. Many companies are creating and selling easy-to-tamper smart locking systems, easy-to-hack sensor systems, and products that host a range of software vulnerabilities. This could allow home invaders to determine when residents are out and enable them to break in more easily; cybercriminals to carry out Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and force appliances offline in exchange for ransom; and malicious actors to steal data, and possibly even personal information, and resell them online.
Despite the bleak outlook, some smart home vendors are starting to take cybersecurity seriously, ABI reports. Vendors, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung and Philips now include security within the project design phase, which primarily means securing the network, making use of encryption key management, and placing limitations on communication protocols.
"OEMs need to first think about security at the design stage and conduct risk assessments," Pavlakis says. "The next step is to ensure that proper security testing happens before the product goes to market. OEMs then need to offer continuous security support over the course of the product's lifespan. Without these basic measures, the eventual financial and reputational costs to OEMs will be high in the wake of malicious hacking of smart home products."
The findings are from ABI's Smart Home Cybersecurity report, which is available at https://www.abiresearch.com/market-research/product/1025773-smart-home-cybersecurity.
