Slowly but inevitably, all our appliances and gadgets — from ovens, TVs and refrigerators to wallets, computers and cars — will be interconnected through a giant network called the Internet of Things, experts say.
It will make our lives easier, they say, but it will also make us more vulnerable.
While connecting so many devices can make life more convenient, there is more to it than that, said Yossi Atias, CEO of California-based Dojo Labs.
“If it's not properly protected,” he said, “that can create quite a lot of issues — anything from basic usage of the device, all the way to more severe cyber-crime-related stuff like identity theft."
On the road
Many modern vehicles have onboard computers, able to connect to the Internet through the owner's smartphone or even directly, which makes them vulnerable to hackers' attacks.
In July 2015, a Jeep Cherokee was remotely stopped on the road by hackers.
Both automakers and private Internet security firms are developing apps for cars' computers to protect against possible intruders.
"Our software sits within a critical system within the car and monitors the internal network of the car for any kind of intrusion and any kind of attempt to hack, as well as preventing the hack from actually happening," said Asaf Atzmon, vice president of Towersec.
In the home
Others are looking further ahead, to when our homes become smarter.
Dojo Labs recently demonstrated a device that watches for any suspicious activity around home appliances that can be remotely controlled over the Internet.
"The system knows how to automatically analyze the behavior of the devices,” Atias said, “and, when it identifies some anomaly in this behavior, it's alerting the user but also blocking this activity."
As the Internet of Things expands, experts say, it pays to think about the security of our personal cyberspace.
