The Obama Administration is looking to make sure the type of cyberattack that took major websites — like Spotify, Netflix, and Twitter — offline last week does not happen again.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will develop a set of “strategic principles” for connected devices, to ensure they meet security standards and don’t fall into the hands of adversaries.
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More than one million connected devices have fell into the hands of bad actors, most of them don’t have any security or hard encryption.
The DHS is calling for manufacturers to integrate more security into the device, like better encryption and other authentication methods. It is also working with the police to teach officers about defect units.
Chinese firms issued recalls
Two Chinese companies issued recalls earlier this week for compromised connected devices, but there’s little evidence an attack on this scale will not happen again. The U.S. government hasn’t even mentioned who it thought was behind this attack, though some have pointed to state sponsored hackers from China, Iran, or Russia.
It doesn’t look like the DHS will block connected devices that don’t adhere to their safety guidelines, similar to how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blocks smartphones and tablets, but that might be a possibility if the U.S. sees an increase in attacks on connected devices.
Security experts are worried that without firm action that forces device manufacturers to step up their security, millions of devices in U.S. homes will remain unsafe and hackable.
The attacks come at a time where connected devices are starting to take over certain roles in the household, like heating and locking doors. If hackers are able to compromise these devices so easily, integrating them into botnets or crashing them, it could cause serious damage to homeowners.
