Can the FTC save the IoT?

Nobody in the IT industry would argue that the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more secure. Pretty much the opposite.

But not for lack of effort. There have been multiple, ongoing initiatives over the past decade, both public and private. There have been dire warnings, publication of various standards and best practices, technology improvements, legislation to encourage threat information sharing and exhortations from government agencies, congressional committees, security firms and conference speakers.

Unfortunately, none of them has worked very well so far.

In spite of some of the best minds and technology improvements in the world focused on it, most of the IoT’s billions and billions of connected devices remain catastrophically insecure, lacking what experts call the most basic “security hygiene.” The flaws include hard-coded credentials, simple and default user names and passwords and the lack of any way to patch or update exploitable vulnerabilities.

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