How to Protect Your Smart Home From Hackers

How to Protect Your Smart Home From Hackers

There are some major benefits to installing a smart home. It can especially help you save time and effort – but it can also pose some dangers to your privacy and security, in the form of hackers. In this short article, you’ll learn a few simple methods to protect your smart home from hackers.

The whole idea of integrating higher-level technology with your everyday appliances really is something of the 21st century. It’s impressive and appealing. But most people feel a little uncomfortable when they discover that hackers can access cameras and see us, or tune into microphones and hear us.

Even the electricians that work with these type of devices each day, have expressed their concern seeing very poor encryption or wifi-security. The very skilled electrician over at Elektriker Bergen, André Olsen has commented that some of the devices are so easily hacked, you could just as well invite the thieves into your home.

However, we don’t have to brush off the upsides of having a smart home completely. If we know the security breaches that might happen with typical smart technology, we can do a few simple things to protect ourselves from any interference from outside.

Determine What’s Most Important to Have

First, you should think about how at ease you feel about installing smart devices in your house, and the features they bring. Yes, it might be convenient to have a security camera so you can defend your house against burglary, but is it also necessary to have a camera that can transfer videos to your computer and ultimately the internet? And artificial intelligence like Siri will be forever awake, waiting for you to tell “her” what to do. Are you comfortable with that, or does it make you feel watched? First, decide what’s most important to have in your smart home, and then go get the things you need.

Create a Unique Password for Your Home Internet

When gotten from the store, the vast majority of internet routers come with no password at all, or a simple one like “internet123” – one which enables hackers to quickly discover your password and thereby take control over any smart technology that is associated with your home internet. Therefore, the most basic thing you should do to protect your smart home against hackers is to create a unique password for your home internet. This usually includes all of the following: capital letters, normal letters, numbers, and symbols like an exclamation or question mark.

Create Unique Passwords for Every Smart Device

After setting up a good password for your home internet, you should also do it for all the smart devices which are connected to it. Since most such technology is steered by individual applications on your phone, and you create a user for all of them, it’s most secure if you make a strong and unique password for each. Having one password for all users is simple, but it poses a great danger in the case that a hacker discovers your password on one account. If they do, they potentially have access to your Facebook, email, even bank account.

Switch Out Old Routers

Most likely you have gotten a new iPhone or Android cellphone, as well as buying a new computer, within the last five years. However, have you also done this for your internet router? Probably not. This poses a risk to your security, as having an old router means having old security systems. Therefore you should make sure to update or get a new router every five years or so, in order to stay up-to-date with the newest security technology.

By adhering to the simple tips in this article, your smart home will be much more secure against hackers.