"Suppose a criminal were using your nanny cam to keep an eye on your house. Or your refrigerator sent out spam e-mails on your behalf to people you don't even know. Now imagine someone hacked into your toaster and got access to your entire network. As smart products proliferate with the Internet of Things, so do the risks of attack via this new connectivity. ISO standards can help make this emerging industry safer.As consumers and users of technology, we are often too distracted by the amazing features of the Internet of Things that we don't even take a minute to think about what this means for our privacy and security. Certainly, a connected baby monitor can give parents peace of mind, letting them easily check on their children from their smartphones anytime, anywhere. But when this technology is not protected, we may be inadvertently exposing ourselves and our loved ones.Indeed, spying on random strangers has never been easier. All it takes is a search engine like Shodan – the Google of the Internet of Things (IoT) – which, to highlight the risk of this technology, crawls the net taking pictures of unprotected devices. The inside of our homes, our pets, even our fridges, are only a click away. Some parents realized how vulnerable they were the hard way when the baby monitor they relied on for safety was hacked to yell obscenities at their sleeping children. It's not surprising that the number of complaints related to IoT technology has risen in the UK alone by 2 000 % over the last three years. ..."

Support: Paper