Bitdefender study: One in four urban homes is smart

A share of 28 percent of Romanian urban homes have at least four intelligent devices connected to the Internet, according to a Bitdefender study.

Intelligent devices owned in households include traditional ones such as laptops, tablets, phones, PCs and new generation devices such as smart TVs, smart clocks, wireless thermostats, webcams, home access systems, gaming consoles, refrigerators, washing machines and internet connected air conditioners, switches and lighting, sockets or motion sensors.

Smart TVs are present in one of three city homes, being the most widespread device after smartphones, laptops and tablets. It is also but also the most widely used connected device, even more often than traditional desktop terminals, baby monitors and smart watches.

Four out of ten smart TV owners say they use the device to browse the internet in addition to watching cable TV, but less than one-third use a security solution to protect them from cyber threats. Although they use a smart TV daily, half of their owners say they have never updated their operating system, most of them claiming they have no time (40 percent), do not know how (23 percent) or do not understand the point of these updates (18 percent).

In the absence of any form of protection, smart TVs are prone to numerous security risks, including personal data theft, privacy invasion or cross-border IT attacks:

The ransomware infection blocks the TV screen and asks the victim to resume optimal operation. Attackers who find a vulnerable TV can take control of it and can use the device’s sensors (microphone or camcorder) to collect sound and image from the owner’s home. A large network of remote-controlled TVs can be used by cybercriminals to orchestrate DDoS attacks. These attacks involve the simultaneous access of a large number of devices to a website, which leads to its downfall. Attackers then ask the site owner for money to resume work.

“Even though smart TVs are among the most popular smart devices in Romania, users are often forgetting that they are as vulnerable as any other phone or laptop, so it needs regular operating system updates, complex passwords and security solutions. Once compromised, these devices can cause serious harm to users, the worst being that they can become surveillance tools located just in the middle of the family,” said Bitdefender, a computer security expert, Bogdan Botezatu.

Consequently, 46 percent of Romanians are worried that a potential attacker could take control of the smart devices they use daily, according to a previous study.

In February, Bitdefender’s cyber security specialists identified a network of tens of thousands of smart gadgets, remote from attackers, capable of rapidly infecting any vulnerable device and spying on the victim’s private life. The HNS investigation has shown an increased level of complexity and the novelty of theft of personal information, ideal for blackmail. The attack-controlled network has reached over 45,000 infected terminals in more than 100 countries.