Big targets: Internet-connected security cameras make up nearly half of all the Internet of Things devices compromised by hackers, ZDNet reports. Smart hubs and network-attached storage devices are next on the hit list. The average U.S. household contains 17 Internet-connected devices, while the average European household has 14.
New rules for the IoT? A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved an IoT security bill that would create security standards that vendors would have to apply before government agencies could buy IoT devices from them, Nextgov says. The legislation aims to leverage the government’s substantial purchasing power to drive security in the IoT market.
Cleaning house: The Chinese government has blocked several foreign media sites in the name of cleaning up the Internet, Reuters reports. China’s campaign will punish and expose websites for “illegal and criminal actions” and for failing to “fulfil their obligation” to take safety measures or prevent the theft of personal information, the government says.
Exposing anti-encryption: The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups are going to court in an attempt to expose the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to break Facebook’s Messenger encryption, ZDNet reports. The groups are asking a court to unseal documents related to the anti-encryption activities.
Encryption campaign: Wired.com has a story about Google’s efforts to add more encryption to the Internet, by building HTTPS protection directly into a handful of top-level domains. “When you register a site through Google that uses ‘.app,’ ‘.dev,’ or ‘.page,’ that page and any others you build off it are automatically added to a list that all mainstream browsers … check when they’re setting up encrypted web connections. It’s called the HTTPS Strict Transport Security preload list, or HSTS, and browsers use it to know which sites should only load as encrypted HTTPS automatically, rather than falling back to unencrypted HTTP in some circumstances.”
Privacy and security should be more than an afterthought. Learn more about Trust by Design and why it matters.