Today almost everything is connected to the internet - from your coffeemaker to your car to your thermostat. But the “Internet of Things” may not be hardwired for security. Window Snyder, computer security expert and author, joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they delve into the scary insecurities lurking in so many of our modern conveniences—and how we can change policies and tech to improve our security and safety.
Window Snyder is the founder and CEO of Thistle Technologies. She’s the former Chief Security Officer of Square, Fastly and Mozilla, and she spent five years at Apple focusing on privacy strategy and features for OS X and iOS. Window is also the co-author of Threat Modeling, a manual for security architecture analysis in software.
In this episode, Window explains why malicious hackers might be interested in getting access to your refrigerator, doorbell, or printer. These basic household electronics can be an entry point for attackers to gain access to other sensitive devices on your network. Some of these devices may themselves store sensitive data, like a printer or the camera in a kid’s bedroom. Unfortunately, many internet-connected devices in your home aren’t designed to be easily inspected and reviewed for inappropriate access. That means it can be hard for you to know whether they’ve been compromised.
But the answer is not forswearing all connected devices. Window approaches this problem with some optimism for the future. Software companies have learned, after an onslaught of attacks, to prioritize security. And she covers how we can bring the lessons of software security into the world of hardware devices.
In this episode, we explain:
This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.
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Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.
This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:
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