Believe In Your Smart Home Appliance Skills But Never Stop Improving
Roomba maps homes — that the dimensions between furniture and other objects would be valuable to some of the major players fighting to control the home. But, iRobot «has not had any conversations with other companies about selling data,» said Colin Angle, the provider's CEO. Data accumulated by smart appliances «is not safe if it's sent off to the cloud,» said Michael Patterson, CEO of Plixer. It represents the integrity of democratic associations and a danger to national safety, Scott cautioned. Reaping the Rewards Amazon's Echo and Google's Home voice-activated speakers monitor and gather data about users through different home appliances and other products, as do manufacturers of smart TVs. Consumers who want to maintain their information safe shouldn't invest in appliances that are Internet-capable, Patterson cautioned. «No IoT device is safe from a data compromise.» Insert artificial intelligence, big data algorithms and machine learning to the mix, along with the bad guys can launch «massive hyperfocused campaigns against specific high-value sensitive targets,» he pointed out. «Adversaries can craft personalized social engineering lures related to targets' exploring patterns, interests, livelihood and vices, for instance, and therefore bypass the cybersecurity and cyber-hygiene reflexes that typically thwart 86 percent of social engineering applications.» However, from discussions with device manufacturers and cybersecurity experts, «data collected by smart home devices will not be available to just any third party,» IHS Markit's Kozak told TechNewsWorld. Information collection is commonplace, Kozak pointed out. Reward cards, fitness trackers and smartphones collect user information. «iRobot is committed to the security of our customers' data, which we consider quite seriously,» he said. «We build security directly into the product development process from the beginning, in the right time of ideation.» Both the Roomba robots and iRobot's network architecture «are continually reviewed by multiple third party safety bureaus,» Angle pointed out. We have a no-compromise attitude when it comes to product security." Everyone can collect an incredible number of data on anyone else by minding search engines on the Web. Insert in data accumulated smart gadgets and by smart house appliances, and data on customers' electricity consumption patterns gathered by smart meters, and it's possible to get a very granular picture of what's going on in someone's home. Also, manufacturers of smart apparatus who gather info «don't act on the data, and even more suggest they… website aggregate it,» he noted. This trend could lead to serious threats to consumers' privacy and safety. Baby monitors have been obtained by hackers, as an example. The United States National Security Agency has made no bones about its willingness to tap the data made available from appliances and the Internet of Things. «iRobot will never sell customer data,» he told TechNewsWorld. Purchases of smart appliances have been on the rise, and voice-activated devices — led by Amazon's Echo line — have been riding the wave. IRobot addresses consumer IoT «with the fundamental principles of security: secure data at rest, secure data in transit, secure execution, and secure updates,» he said. Smart home appliances and gadgets store the data they gather in the cloud, which is not inviolate. The Swedish government recently faced an upheaval following the discovery that all Swedish citizens' private information had been leaked after it had been moved to a cloud operate by IBM, a firm known for strong cybersecurity. The government replaced two of its ministers in a bid to quell the uproar. The current rumor which iRobot had engaged in discussions with Apple, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet to sell the information its Roomba vacuum cleaner gathers caused widespread privacy issues. «The widespread collection, insecure storage, negligent exchange, and irresponsible usage of consumer metadata poses a direct and hyper-evolving threat to consumers, government officials, and critical infrastructure owners and operators,» he told TechNewsWorld. «The ease with which an attacker can harvest and collect demographic and psychographic data on targets is astounding,» said James Scott, senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology. Malware diagnostic technologies from security vendors «are not a surefire defense against targeted attacks,» he told TechNewsWorld. «Nothing short of unplugging from the Internet can keep your data safe.» Data collection is intended to give an extra revenue stream for the manufacturer or service supplier, in addition to enhance the user's expertise, stated Blake Kozak, principal analyst at IHS Markit. That is the rumor which iRobot was discussing sale of the information alarmed customer privacy advocates. «The company will never violate customer trust by selling or misusing customer-related data, including data collected by our connected products,» Angle emphasized.