I just saw a commercial for a faucet that would be WiFi enabled.
We have WiFi enabled light fixtures, thermostats, coffee makers, refrigerators, and now faucets. There’s televisions, cameras, security systems, not to mention the WiFi for your house, routers, hubs, I could go on, but you get the point. I’m waiting for the iCat from Apple, the upgrade to my current non-WiFi enabled cat.
The point of all of this is that putting everything on the Internet is convenient. It’s nice to be able to watch Netflix on your television with no extra work. Having the fridge tell you you’re out of milk and should buy some, also a nice thing. Convenient, even. No longer do you need to make a second trip just for milk because of the Internet.
On the other hand, the convenience comes with a price as Mirai showed us so blatantly. Devices we install in our homes for convenience may not have the best security baked in. Default passwords, no upgrade paths, vulnerabilities, all of these can turn these convenient devices into little destructive bots.
There’s a balancing act between the convenience of these devices and the dangers. We invite contributions to DTRAP about this balancing act, submit your column or article to us at https://dtrap.acm.org/