Let this pebble protect your smart home devices

BullGuard have recently made a case for why we need to be thinking about security for smart-home devices. According to a recent report from Gartner, the number of connected IoT devices is forecast to reach 8.4 billion by the end of 2017 – up 31% from 2016 – and reach 20.4 billion by 2020.

The company said that IoT market was growing at an exponential pace and with that growth comes an increased risk of cyber attacks.

Interestingly, an article in destinationCRM.com quoted Robert Gimeno-Feu, Managing Director, Accenture Analytics. With the ‘miniaturization of technologies’ and the reduced cost of computing power, “there is almost nothing that could not become connected if a use case is developed for it,” he stated. The possibilities, he said, were “literally endless.”

With so many devices connected to the Internet, BullGuard has launched Dojo, designed to protect smart home IoT devices against cyber thieves.

One can view a connected home as an achievement in efficiency or on the flip side as a fool’s paradise for mischief makers if the devices are left open to vulnerabilities. When do smart devices look dumb if easily compromised, unable to fend off attacks? There are reasons to worry.

Monty Munford wrote in Forbes in January: “Meanwhile, in the Internet of Things (IoT) business, fragmentation is the order of the day. There are so many different frameworks that this lack of interoperability not only threatens the industry, but is a marked threat to the security of the Smart Home.”

BullGuard stated: “In a recent survey of 2000 US consumers conducted by BullGuard about IoT device adoption, nearly 70% of consumers said they have concerns about privacy invasion, and 23% stated that they lack the technical ability to secure their smart home devices.”

BullGuard, made up of a team of ‘security experts and hackers’ is promoting Dojo as a ‘consumer cyber security solution’ that can protect smart home IoT devices and consumer privacy from cyber threats. The user could think of it as protection for the connected devices in the home, as it is an activity monitor of those devices and can inform the user of threats.

“There are billions of connected Internet of Things devices on the market today – from smart alarms, thermostats, baby monitors, smart appliances, lighting, locks and more. Dojo by BullGuard is built to protect them all,” said BullGuard.

The Dojo is available in the US from $199, which includes the first 12 months of service. The device has a sleek design. A dock plugs into the WiFi router, acting like a firewall between the connected devices and potential threats.

How it protects: The Pebble illuminates rings of light upon signs of malicious activity picked up on the user’s WiFi network. It has three indicator levels of green, yellow and red.

“Yellow rings indicate that a risk has been detected and automatically mitigated, while red rings of light indicate that an action must be taken in the Dojo smartphone app,” said the company.

The app, informing of any potential cyber threats, is for both iOS and Android. The app uses a chat-like interface, to communicate alerts, and there is a function to remotely control or disconnect devices.

“If the system detects a threat, it can automatically disconnect the affected devices to keep the malware from leeching data or hacking into other devices,” reported a spokesperson.

Paul Lipman, CEO, said Dojo has “unrivaled deep multi-layered levels of protection,” and described the software as “enterprise-grade.”

One interesting feature about Dojo is intelligence; it learns along the way. It gets to know the owner’s devices and finds patterns in total behavior. Using this intelligence, it sets up a perimeter for home protection and for user control.