Smart home security

Everyone with access to the internet should have cyber-security protection. Cyber-attacks reached a peak in 2021 as data breaches grew by over 17% from 2020, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. In fact, cybersecurity is now considered a growing human rights issue, with the UN Security Council holding its second-ever cyber-security meeting in 2020.

CSPs are responsible for smart home security. Here’s why.

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Data breaches

17%

US household devices

38%

Sources: “Number of Data Breaches in 2021 Surpasses All of 2020,,” Identity Theft Resource Center “It’s Time to Treat Cybersecurity as a Human Rights Issue” Human Rights Watch “Plume’s just getting started with 1 billion connected devices,” Plume

Businesses and government organizations aren’t the only ones who should be worried about cyber-threats. Consumers are increasingly vulnerable to these attacks as they fill their homes with more connected devices. Our research found that the number of devices per US household increased by 38% during the pandemic, with an average of 18 devices per household. And we’re not just talking about laptops and smartphones. There was a 223% increase in virtual reality devices, a 132% increase in fitness bikes and trainers, and a 110% increase in smart light bulbs.

Virtual reality devices

223%

Fitness bikes and trainers

132%

Smart light bulbs

110%

Each of these devices needs proactive protection against cyber-security threats and attacks. The question is: who is responsible for providing, maintaining, and ensuring protection from cyber-security threats? The companies that make connected devices? The consumers who buy and set up those devices? Or the Communications Service Providers (CSPs) who deliver the connected experiences? While everyone can do their part, it’s CSPs who need to step up and lead the charge in offering comprehensive, cyber-security management and risk mitigation to their customers.

Who is responsible for providing, maintaining, and ensuring protection from cyber-security threats?

“At the end of the day, the service provider has to be responsible because they’re providing the internet service in the smart home. And part of the smart home is cyber-security threat protection.”

Adam Hotchkiss Plume cofounder and vice-president of customer solutions and integrations

Here’s a closer look at why CSPs are responsible for cyber-security risk mitigation—and how they can best provide that service to their customers.

Why CSPs need to lead the charge

It makes sense for CSPs to be responsible for cyber-security coverage because they’re already the constant, direct link into the customer’s home—where new devices are always being added, updated, and connected to their networks. With the right adaptive tools, CSPs can consistently monitor and optimize those networks in real-time. “If I look at my network, I have 50 devices connected at any given time—WiFi, lightbulbs, sensors, thermostats, all from different companies,” said Hotchkiss. Some companies are still in business, some are out of business. I just can’t expect the makers of those devices to keep up.”

At the same time, consumers can’t be expected to manually check for cyber-security threats across their many devices and go through the pain of contacting the device makers each time an issue arises. “As things get old, hacks start to appear in these older operating systems, and there has to be somebody on the network level keeping track of those and providing the protection for the consumer,” said Hotchkiss. “We view that responsibility as lying solely with the service provider.”

It’s no small feat to provide cyber-security threat management services for swarms of devices across millions of homes. Whether consumers are playing games, sharing files, taking video calls, checking emails, or bit torrenting, they can potentially open their homes to malicious attacks.

How CSPs can deliver adaptive cyber-security services

Adam Hotchkiss Plume cofounder and vice-president of customer solutions and integrations

“Any time a device talks to the internet, you need to check to make sure it’s running its usual services, and that those services are not malicious. So you have to check: who is it talking to? Is that a known service? Is it on a black list somewhere?”

How can CSPs possibly make this happen at scale? They need a cloud-based platform and adaptive framework that gives them complete network visibility and control. “If any device starts behaving erratically or differently from other devices in the network, we can see that from the cloud,” said Hotchkiss. “Then we can notify the user, quarantine the device and disinfect it, and then bring it back up on the network again. Those are all functions that are handled by the networking layer in the cloud that the service provider can offer to the consumer.”

That’s why Plume created a Consumer Experience Management Platform so CSPs can upgrade, monitor, and manage their customers’ networks in real-time. With HomePass, for example, CSPs can deliver a suite of Smart Home Services that are personalized to each customer’s needs. One of those services, Guard, keeps connected homes safe with advanced cyber-security features, including IoT anomaly detection and device quarantining. Since HomePass runs on the cloud, it’s also constantly collecting data and getting smarter over time.

Since HomePass runs on the cloud, it’s also constantly collecting data and getting smarter over time. “You start to learn the behavior of those devices, and then you can apply very specific security profiles for them,” Hotchkiss said. “The more data and the more devices that we see, the better our algorithms get at making sure those devices are secure when they are connected.” Only with these tools can CSPs rise to their greatest challenge yet: defenders of cyber-security across an ever-evolving, connected world.

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