The Holiday Season is one of the major gift-giving seasons of the year. Consequently, everyone in our family or friend group is looking to gift us with the latest cool tech gadget on the market. that will either blow our minds and improve our lives or blow our minds and leave us more confused about smart devices.
Smart Devices
When you hear of smart devices, you are right to think of Robo-vacuum, Google home system, Apple Watch, Fit Bits, Alexa, doorbell cam, hue bulbs and lighting system. These are gadgets that are made with technological improvements to enhance their performance and ease of use. They are called the Internet of Things or IoT.
IoT is a system of interrelated computing devices and digital machines with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT devices create pathways to other devices in the network by linking them. However, a lot of these IoT devices do not have adequate security and privacy measure built-in to ensure the end-users’ safety.
Trustworthiness of IoT
IoT is used in a lot of domains such as healthcare, home automation systems, agriculture, wearables, smart cities and so much more.
The interdependency of the smart systems brings a cascading risk in the cyber domain for all end-users. A breach or vulnerability in one system can easily flow to the other dependent systems.
Think of it this way: If someone can hack your nanny cam and see what is going on in your home, 
they could potentially find a pathway to your personal device like a mobile phone or laptop if it linked to the nanny cam and they could bypass its encryption and get access to your data. IoT can provide an access point to the smart hub of your home.
The number of potential security vulnerabilities increases with the number of gadgets linked to an IoT device. IoT devices constantly collect data that represent the user- health data, voice data, behavioral data. It is therefore vital that the security, safety, privacy, and reliability of the IoT system is high.
IoT and connectivity are growing rapidly, so more potential vulnerabilities may be introduced if no security strategy was applied during the design phase. The systems are distributed, so it’s crucial to have well-designed security guidelines that enable encryption and guarantee a higher level of safety for the end-users.
What can you do?
In conclusion, we need to be more alert about what we are connecting into our homes. Here are some of the ways you can better secure your IoT and the devices linked to it.
1. Check the device vendors’ privacy and security policies on the website and see how they plan to use the data they will be collecting through the IoT
2. Don’t use the default security setting. Customize the privacy and security settings in your device
3. Read manuals and policy agreements before consenting to them
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