| 04.05.2017

Smart products vulnerable according to article about IoT

The supply of smart products is increasing at an enormous speed and is expected to reach 50 billion in 2020. Smartproducts are devices and appliances, for example refrigerators or washing machines, that are connected to the Internet.

Assistant Professor Linus Nyman has written an article about the Internet of Things together with Mikko Hyppönen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure and a well known expert on information security.

“The article is based on “Hypponen’s law”: whenever an appliance is described as being “smart”, it’s vulnerable. These vulnerabilities can lead to an appliance leaking passwords or opening a way into an otherwise safe network, but they can also lead to bigger problems on a global scale if the number of hacked appliances is big enough”, says Linus Nyman.

One of the biggest reasons appliances are so vulnerable is that a lot of companies are rushing to enter the IoT market without a background in software.

“Our article lists important aspects for both companies entering the IoT-market as well as for consumers in the market for IoT products. Ultimately, it is entirely possible that we will need new legislation if we want to secure the vulnerabilities of IoT”, Nyman concludes.

You can read the whole article in the Technology Innovation Management Review here.