By Editorial Team The age of the smart home is here, and the possibilities keep growing! Ordinary plugs and bulbs already seem old school, as AI integration, multi-use devices, and user recognition and profiling advances make for truly tailor-made smart home experiences.
Your smart home might be more advanced than ever, but many associated cybersecurity risks remain. After you’ve read our thorough guide, you’ll know about all the potential dangers to your smart home and how to deal with them effectively.
Smart, but Not Secure
The trouble with smart devices is their general susceptibility to various forms of cyberattacks. Most are small and inexpensive, with limited hardware-based security capabilities. This can become real trouble, as smart home hubs allow devices from different manufacturers to be part of the same home network, leading to situations where the weakest link can compromise the entire ecosystem.
The main threats targeting smart devices today may vary in scope and effects, prompting smart home users to develop comprehensive countermeasures. Here are some of them.
Automated bot attacks
While hackers might sometimes target specific individuals, most attempt to exploit any unprotected device by casting a wide net. They deploy automated hacking tools that guess a device’s password through brute force. Since many users forget to update their devices’ default passwords, this method is highly effective.
Once an unprotected device is hijacked, hackers can repurpose it as part of a botnet. Such botnets encapsulate a coordinated network of enslaved devices that bombard websites with requests, creating DDoS attacks that can disrupt their availability for hours or days.
Man-in-the-middle attacks
A man-in-the-middle attack occurs when hackers intercept the network smart devices use, allowing them to monitor or alter the data sent and received. The severity of this attack varies by device type.
Thermostats are among the riskiest to tamper with since sending them false information could cause the temperature in your home to exceed comfortable and safe levels in either direction. This can potentially pose a health risk to young and disabled family members.
Device hijacking
Hackers can not only monitor smart home traffic but also take control of connected devices. This is tricky to detect since the device keeps functioning normally yet provides hackers with frightening information and access to your home and privacy.
Security cameras and baby monitors are the prime targets here since they let hackers see and hear what’s going on in your home. There are documented cases of hijackers talking to victims, which are unsettling, to say the least. Worse yet, someone might change a compromised smart lock’s access keys, locking you out and letting themselves in.
Phishing scams
Phishing emails come in countless varieties, one of which targets smart home users. The scammers might send an email pretending to be one of the smart device manufacturers, asking you to reset your password or the payment details for your subscription. They’ll include links to a site that looks like the original but is only there to steal your account credentials and payment information.
Another tactic hackers use to scam smart home users is impersonating a retailer. For example, Best Buy, a major smart home retailer, offers the Geek Squad, a subscription-based tech support service. In a related 2024 Geek Squad scam, hackers impersonated Geek Squad personnel, contacting Best Buy customers to claim their membership was expiring and instructing them to reset their passwords.
Data breaches
Data breaches can impact smart device manufacturers directly, giving hackers access to their databases, which are then sold to data brokers or posted on the dark web. Given the data-gathering nature of smart devices, the leaked information can be extensive.
This may include personally identifiable information, such as your name, address, SSN, and banking details. Depending on the device, data on your health, routines, or political and religious views could also be exposed.
Phlashing
Most smart home hacking attempts aim to gather information or repurpose infected devices. However, some can disable them outright. Phlashing involves sending corrupted firmware to susceptible devices, causing them to lock up and become permanently unusable. While infrequent, such attacks are costly and leave your home vulnerable to conventional threats until you get more reliable replacements.
How to Protect Your Smart Home and Yourself?
While all the threats we outlined are plausible and have happened to people before, they become highly improbable if you take appropriate security measures. Luckily, they’re all straightforward enough so that even less tech-savvy family members will find it easy to keep them in mind.
Set up custom passwords
Research suggests that 15% of IoT device users never bother to change their default passwords. Having a widely known username and password combination is like having no protection whatsoever. To minimize the impact of a data breach, secure each smart home device with a unique and complex password and add two-factor authentication while you’re at it. The easiest and most secure way to set up both is via a password manager.
Regularly update firmware
All IoT devices run on a core set of instructions embedded by the manufacturer known as firmware. The firmware governs how they operate and connect, along with anti-tampering measures. The likelihood of cyber crooks finding and abusing an exploit increases the longer devices remain unpatched.
You’ll want to ensure automatic updates are on and perform periodic manual checks for extra assurance. Moreover, your gadgets are bound to lose support as they age. Keep track of this and buy more modern replacements once the old ones reach their end of life.
Improve network security
Compromised smart home devices may act as a starting point for unauthorized network access, further hijacking, or monitoring and infecting other connected devices with malware.
Not all devices use encrypted connections when sending and receiving data. This is why you should use a VPN and configure it to provide encryption at the router level. That way, any network connection will benefit from its encrypted tunnel and be impossible to monitor or intercept.
Do your research
Smart gadget adoption is accelerating and continues to grow with strong forecasts for the future. Increasing competition means more security risks, as ethically dubious companies put out cheaper, more vulnerable alternatives to established brands.
Each new device expands your attack surface, so research thoroughly before buying. Avoid purchasing smart devices from untrustworthy websites or unknown manufacturers. Check user
reviews and the company’s cybersecurity record to ensure you’re not buying hackers a free ticket to your network.
Limit information availability
The less your smart home devices know about you, the less there is to compromise. Use a separate email when signing up for these services and avoid sharing personal details if possible. For security cameras and baby monitors, choose models that store footage locally instead of in the cloud.
To further protect your information, set social media accounts to private and avoid publicly sharing identifiable details. If you notice more ads, spam emails, or other invasive behavior after buying certain smart home devices, your data may have been shared with data brokers or surfaced on Google.
In situations like this, it’s natural to wonder how to remove personal information from Google for free—and that’s exactly what you should do. Several free data removal services can help delete exposed information from brokers and similar sources, giving you greater control over your data and reducing vulnerability to cyberattacks. Be sure to take advantage of these resources.
Conclusion
The smart home trend is fundamentally transforming and enhancing our day-to-day lives with unprecedented customization, connectivity, and convenience. But keeping it safe from cyber threats is a core aspect of maintaining your smart home’s efficiency, which you can now perform without hassle.
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