FutureWatch - Keep Your Eye on IoT - The Encryption Debate is a Distraction

...products, ranging from “toasters to bedsheets, light bulbs, cameras, toothbrushes, door locks, cars, watches and other wearables,” will give the government increasing opportunities to track suspects and in many cases reconstruct communications and meetings. more

...from "Don’t Panic: Making Progress on the ‘Going Dark’ Debate"
The audio and video sensors on IoT devices will open up numerous avenues for government actors to demand access to real-time and recorded communications.

A ten-year-old case involving an in-automobile concierge system provides an early indication of how this might play out. The system enables the company to remotely monitor and respond to a car’s occupants through a variety of sensors and a cellular connection. At the touch of a button, a driver can speak to a representative who can provide directions or diagnose problems with the car. During the course of an investigation, the FBI sought to use the microphone in a car equipped with such a system to capture conversations taking place in the car’s cabin between two alleged senior members of organized crime.

In 2001, a federal court in Nevada issued ex parte orders that required the company to assist the FBI with the intercept. The company appealed, and though the Ninth Circuit disallowed the interception on other grounds, it left open the possibility of using in-car communication devices for surveillance provided the systems’ safety features are not disabled in the process.

Such assistance might today be demanded from any company capable of recording conversations or other activity at a distance, whether through one’s own smartphone, an Amazon Echo, a baby monitor, an Internet-enabled security camera, or a futuristic “Elf on a Shelf” laden with networked audio and image sensors. more

Do You Have an IoT in the Workplace Policy? (you need one)

via Rafal Los 
It’s the beginning of the year, and for many of us that means hauling in some new gear into the office. Santa continues to bring more widgets and gizmos, and some of that stuff comes to the office with you. I think this is as good a time as any to think about the Internet of Things (IoT) and what it means for your CISO.

We’ve had an Amazon Echo at my house for a while now, since I couldn’t help myself but get on the early adopters list long ago. Truth be told, I love it. Alexa tells me the weather, keeps the twins’ Raffi albums close at hand, and reminds me to buy milk. But since my daughter has discovered her inner spider monkey, she likes to climb up on the cabinet where Alexa lives and likes to talk to her… and pull on the power cable. Also, she once turned the volume up all the way so that when I asked Alexa the weather at 6:30 a.m. I woke up the entire house…whoops. So long story short, Alexa has been unplugged, and I thought … why not take it to the office?

The find.

Here’s the issue — Echo is “always listening” so there’s that question of how welcome she would be in my office where confidential and highly sensitive conversations are a-plenty. Furthermore, Echo streams music and would need my credentials to get wireless network access. I suppose I could just use my personal Wi-Fi hotspot, but that seems like a waste. In case you’re wondering, I opted to not test my CISO’s good will, and Alexa will just have to live with my twins’ abuse. more

This is not a theoretical, I found an Echo in a top executive's office last year. He said it was a gift.

Add an IoT policy to your BYOD policy, and have us check for technical surveillance items and information security loopholes periodically. ~Kevin

Your New IoT Ding-Dong Can Open Your Wi-Fi... to hackers

Getting hacked is bad, but there’s something worse than that: getting hacked because of your own smart doorbell. 

Ring is a popular smart doorbell that allows you to unlock your door from your phone, as well as see and hear visitors via a webcam.

Unfortunately for Ring, that same doorbell meant you could have had your Wi-Fi password stolen in a few minutes if someone cracked into the physical doorbell...

According to Pen Test Partners, the attack was relatively trivial... more