IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 51
Can
You
Trust
Your
Fridge?
Today's InTerneT of ThIngs Is full
of securITy flaws. we musT do beTTer
By Alan Grau * Illustration by J.D. King
I
mag ine a criminal using your
nanny cam to watch your house
or to scream at your child-or even
to post footage of your home on a
crime boss's website. And suppose
your refrigerator were spewing spam
e-mail, enraging people you'd never
even met.
The Internet of Things has been
touted as many things. But what you
haven't heard is that it could be your
worst enemy. Yet all of these incidents
have actually occurred, according to
news reports. And it's likely that even
more disturbing transgressions have
been taking place unbeknownst to
homeowners. For example, researchers have discovered that in some cases,
they can hack the Internet of Things
to intercept each document you print
and divert it to a remote site, use your
smart TV to bug your house, and even
control the traffic light on the corner
outside your home.
For although the Internet of Things
offers great convenience by linking our
gadgets-an estimated 50 billion of them
worldwide by 2020-it can also let hackers take control of your house, your car,
and even your body.
The vulnerabilities lie all around you.
A recent HP Research study reported
that the average Internet of Things
gadget has an astounding 25 security
flaws, and 70 percent have at least one
such vulnerability. Many of these problems may yield to solutions like those
adopted by the personal computer
industry decades ago. As I'll explain
later, there are also some that require
new approaches that take into account
the vast scale and narrow profit margin of the emerging world of Internetaugmented products.
Let's start with your home. Your smart
meter-if you don't have one, you soon
will-can turn off selected appliances,
such as air conditioners, whenever the
power network is close to being overwhelmed. That's fine. What's not so
fine is if a hacker gets into your home's
smart meter and makes it cut off elec-
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015
Contents
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 1
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 2
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - Contents
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 4
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 5
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 6
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 7
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 8
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 9
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 10
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 11
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 12
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 13
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 14
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 15
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 16
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 17
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 18
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 19
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 20
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 21
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 22
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 23
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 24
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 25
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 26
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 27
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 28
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 29
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 30
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 31
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 32
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 33
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 34
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 35
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 36
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 37
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 38
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 39
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 40
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 41
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 42
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 43
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 44
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 45
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 46
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 47
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 48
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 49
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 50
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 51
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 52
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 53
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 54
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 55
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 56
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 57
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 58
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 59
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 60
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 61
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 62
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 63
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 64
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 65
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 66
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 67
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 68
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 69
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 70
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 71
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 72
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 73
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 74
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 75
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - 76
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2015 - Cover4
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