Five ways in which you can secure IoT devices from cyber attacks

IoT devices have made our lives so much easier and convenient. They allow us to conduct our work and perform our daily life activities in a convenient and easy way.

Nowadays, there are even complete households that run on IoT devices. Although they have made everything easier for us, they also come with a certain risk and that is they can be hacked which can lead to loss of personal and sensitive information.

Cyber attacks have increased greatly in the past couple of years or so and as a result, these devices have become more vulnerable to cyber threats. Here, we take a look at some of the ways in which you can secure your IoT devices and prevent them from getting hacked.

1. Change the default settings of the router

The first piece of equipment that is most important and vulnerable is your router.

Your router holds access to all of the devices connected to the network and if the security of your router is not strong enough, chances are that it can be hacked easily by someone who has sound knowledge about these things.

Whenever you buy a new router then you would find that the default settings including the default name of the network and password are set by the router manufacturers. This is a temporary solution by the router manufacturer until you set up your router and change these default settings.

To improve the security of your office or home IoT devices, make sure that you change these settings.

Changing the default WiFi SSID along with the default password is the first thing that you should do to prevent your devices from getting hacked. This can be done by visiting the default gateway address of the router 192.168.0.1 and making the required changes to the settings. 

2. Enable two-factor authentication

No matter how secure you think your devices and network is, you should always enable two-factor authentication. IoT devices contain a lot of sensitive and important information including access to our bank accounts and you should always ensure that two-factor authentication is enabled for every account.

All the accounts where your personal, sensitive, and financial information is stored should be secured with two-factor authentication to prevent anyone from accessing such information even if your passwords and IoT devices get compromised. 

3. Disconnect a device/gadget when you are not using it

Whenever you are not using a device or gadget then disconnecting them from the Internet is the best way to prevent hackers from getting any sort of access to them. If your device is not connected to the internet then it will be virtually impossible for them to gain access to the device. 

This can include devices like TV, refrigerators, smart speakers, etc. Although these devices don't have personal or sensitive information stored, these can be a pathway by which the hackers gain access to your network and to other devices on the network.

So, whenever you are not using any device or gadget, disconnecting them from the network is the right thing to do. 

4. Tighten the security of your router

As mentioned, your router is the gateway to all of the connected devices on the network and if the password of your router is not strong enough then it can compromise all of the other devices on the network.

To ensure that the security of your router is strong enough, you should set a strong Wi-Fi password and along with that, employ other security features.

These security features include enabling a firewall that will monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, enabling MAC filters to allow only authorised devices to access the internet, and using a strong encryption protocol like WPA2 or WPA3.

Again, these settings can be changed by logging into the admin interface of the router through the default gateway address like 192.168.1.1 and then visiting the security settings to make the required changes. 

5. Make every IoT device secure by itself

Along with all of these, make sure that every IoT device that you have in your home or office is secured on its own.

Using a different password for every IoT device and enabling the separate security features of each device to ensure that every device is secure on its and even if your network is compromised, the hackers won’t be able to access the connected devices.