Industry Expert Blogs
IoT Security: Gone in a WinkEETimes Blog - Jackson Shaw, DellJun. 24, 2015 |
The recent security lapse of an Internet of Things vendor teaches three key lessons any IoT designer should learn.
Wink, Inc. (New York City) is a home automation company with its Wink Hub at the heart of its connected home business. One of the claims to fame of the Wink Hub is it can coordinate devices from other manufacturers that support the Wink network such as Nest thermostats, Philips Hue lightbulbs, Chamberlain garage door openers and DropCam cameras.
As an IoT device, everything is done automatically including software updates from the manufacturer. Unfortunately for Wink, automated updates came to a crashing halt recently. In fact, the crash was so bad that the Wink hubs were effectively bricked -- the hardware was made inoperable.