As people become more and more surrounded by smart devices, with the Internet of Things (IoT) attacks intensifying, Kaspersky, a leading anti-virus company has recommended ways users of smart devices can keep them safe.
“Judging by the enlarged number of attacks and criminals’ persistency, we can say that IoT is a fruitful area for attackers that use even the most primitive methods, like guessing password and login combinations. Thus, to keep your devices safe, we urge everyone to take this simple step towards securing your smart devices” – said Dan Demeter, a security researcher at Kaspersky.
- Install updates for the firmware you use as soon as possible. Once the vulnerability is found, it can be fixed through patches within updates.
- Always change preinstalled passwords. Use complicated passwords that include both capital and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols if it’s possible.
- Reboot a device as soon as you think it’s acting strangely. It might help get rid of existing malware, but this doesn’t reduce the risk of getting another infection.
- Keep access to IoT devices restricted by a local VPN, allowing you to access them from your “home” network, instead of publicly exposing them on the internet.
- Use threat data feeds to block network connections originating from malicious network addresses detected by security researchers.
- Make sure all device’s software is up to date. Unpatched devices should be kept in a separate network inaccessible by unauthorized users.