Some of your smart devices are not prepared to withstand hacker attacks, with many of these vulnerable to trespass in minutes. A tech expert shared with Cheddar how shoppers should gear up, ahead of this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Craig Williams, senior technical leader and global outreach manager at Cisco, says connected Barbies, baby monitors, and smart TVs, just to name a few, are the latest items of choice on a hacker's list. Some estimates project that by 2020 the world will be home to 20.8 billion smart connected products, making poorly secured smart devices and toys a criminal's opportunity to "make bank." Williams says that unfortunately there is no secure operating system out there. The bar is very low for security within IoT devices. The best thing you can do is to find a manufacturer that will continue to make patches to its system. He also urges consumers to push harder on these manufacturers in order to ensure safe products. The expert suggests researching on Google whether products are hacker proof before purchasing the item.

Share:
More In Business
Trump Administration Shutters Consumer Protection Agency
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Load More