Those Fancy-Schmancy Gadgets Are Spying on You

jesadaphorn When it comes to gifts from the Internet of Things department, there's no jolly guy in a white-trimmed red suit with a bag full of presents, no magic reindeer clip-clopping on the roof. In fact, it's far more likely that you'll never discern the pitter-pat of digital feet when you connect that IoT gift to your WiFi -- whether it belongs to members of a marketing team, cyber thieves or your garden-variety voyeur. You know what I mean here. I'm talking about the new smart everything: televisions, various household help such as thermostats and water heaters, garage door openers, alarms, lights, medical devices, fitness wearables and baby monitors with many more connected devices coming early and often to a store near you. You're Letting Spies Inside You've hopefully heard this before with regard to your Facebook (FB) account and other social media sites, but it bears repeating: Whenever you are offered something free of charge or for a negligible fee, assume that you are the product. Often you are unwittingly pitching the product to acquaintances who are likely to buy the same thing -- this goes for all those products that ask to share information about your new acquisition on social media upon registration -- or you are helping the service that you just subscribed to (by purchasing their device) to perfect itself. In a perfect world, this would be ... well, perfect. In the real world, IoT is still in the Wild West stage of its evolution. Indeed, smaller companies are rushing IoT products to market in a mad dash to beat bigger brands that have more at stake when it comes to security and therefore roll out new products and services with more deliberation and caution. As a result, you can't always be so sure that your data is going to be safe. Over the past few years, we've learned the hard way that there is no such thing as too safe or secure when it comes to cybercrime, and there are a whole host of organizations out there -- both big and small -- that are doing a miserable job of protecting you.