7 Tips to Help Keep Your Smart Home Secure

Smart home devices fall into the realm of IoT or Internet of Things. IoT is a phrase that describes technologies that connect to the internet. Before Smart Home Devices and smartphones, IoT Devices consisted of Wired PCs and other PC equipment. Today, billions of more devices connect through complex wired, wireless and cellular connections to the internet. These new connections bring additional vulnerabilities and new best practices to stay secure.  Like a chain, security is only as strong as it’s the weakest link. Below are a few ways to keep your links strong.  

1. Update your router firmware settings. Most, if not All Smart Homes require a wireless router to connect to your various devices. You can update the Router firmware settings configuration settings of the router. Consult your Router’s manual on how to specifically update your router’s firmware. Typically, you will start at a web browser and type 192.168.#.#. (#’s vary per router manufacturer)
2. Change the default router administrator password. Most wireless routers today come with a default username and password. Perhaps Admin with a blank username. Changing this password to something unique and not easily guessed increases your home network security. 
3. Add Security to your home network. While this might be the easy, answer, there are still networks out there that are not password protected. Adding WPA security to your network decreases the chance of unauthorized access. 
4. Keep Devices up to date. Whether it’s your Xbox, ps4, smart Tv, or streaming device, and it’s important to keep these devices up to date. This means installing regular updates; most security updates are fixing a known vulnerability. 
5. Keep Personal Computing devices up to date.  PC’s, Mac’s, tablets, desktops, and laptops need to be kept up to date with recent software. The recent wannacry virus attack Summer 2017 was exploiting a Windows vulnerability that windows released an update for in 2016. Those that kept their PC’s up to date were safe. These devices can act as a gateway for hackers into your network if not kept secure.
6. Install virus protection and anti-malware. In addition to regular operating system updates, it’s important to keep anti-virus and anti-malware software up to date on your computer to protect against active threats. 
7. Have strong passwords. Whenever you use a password. For your accounts, for your computer, for your wireless router, for your network, for your smart home device accounts, anywhere, please keep a secure password mentality.  

The unfortunate truth is that IoT and smart home devices are never 100% secure. The best we can do is to make it very difficult for hackers to penetrate our systems so that it’s not even worth their time and effort. Following these principals laid out will make you a much less likely target for hacking attacks. If you would like to read more on the topic, here’s an in-depth article from Rambus with the next level of precautions. Do you have more ideas on how to keep your smart home more secure? Comment below.