The internet of things is going to be vastly detrimental to my future and to the future of America. The internet of things creates more problems than it solves. For instance, it may allow you to remotely check your door locks, the air conditioner temperature, or if you left the stove on, but if you can check it from anywhere so can other people and they can exploit your personal data for their gain. The thought of someone else being able to control everything in my house remotely with me in it is terrifying.
Relatively recently there has been a new form of hacking introduced along with the gradual implementation of the Internet of Things. It’s called pivot hacking. It’s where you gain access to a network from an unsecured device, such as a refrigerator, thermostat, or stove. With the internet of things, these are all connected to the home network and are very easy to get into. Once someone gains access to anyone of the unsecured devices on your network, they can then pivot into your secured devices from inside the network. From there you can take whatever you want from the secured devices, such as bank account information, credit cards, contacts, photos videos, by stealing all the data it sends through the network. It makes the hacker’s job much easier. You don't have to get through a firewall or deal with encryption to gain complete network access.
Companies are always behind patching and securing network capable devices so the hackers are always going to be one step ahead of anything they put out. So why would someone want to willingly put their information up for grabs so easily. You wouldn't walk around the street holding up your bank information in small print because someone might see it. That’s exactly what you do with smart devices like this. You leave valuable information for people to easily take. Just for the sake of having smart home devices.
These devices are sold for their convenience and universal accessibility. But do we really need that? No, not at all. This new technology doesn’t replace door locks, or thermostats it just controls it. So what’s wrong with using them the way people have been for a 100 years. Just use the manual controls and don't give the opportunity for bad things to happen, because what can happen will inevitably happen. It’s not worth it and we need to be smarter with how we protect our data.
