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One simple way to improve your security at home is to have a "guest" WiFi network which is separate from your real one and which all these questionable IoT dev

One simple way to improve your security at home is to have a "guest" WiFi network which is separate from your real one and which all these questionable IoT devices can use.

kbenson 9y ago
That doesn't necessarily prevent them from infecting each other and other people/devices on the internet, or being used in attacks. It's sort of like living in a neighborhood and having a rock pile you enjoy the aesthetics of, but know it's prone to having rattlesnakes move in, and instead of fixing the rattlesnake problem either as it happens or at the root, just putting a wall around your property excluding the pile. Sure, you're mostly safe, but when animals/children get bit, your solution starts to look quite a bit worse.
- gtrubetskoy 9y ago
  Agreed, it's definitely not full-proof by any stretch. But it's amazing how many people enter their WiFi password into devices they really have no control over that can then for example sniff your network, slowly but steadily crack your passwords, possibilities are endless.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    If that is a security problem, you probably have a much bigger problem anyway. Secure passwords cannot be cracked, the public internet is hostile anyway and you should be protecting your communication with strong cryptography. Pretty much the only sensible reason why you should protect your internal network from access (including sniffing) is because you might have IoT on it that tend to have terrible security. Putting them all in the same, but separate, network, essentially achieves nothing.
thephyber 9y ago
This is called network segmentation and it's the direction that the network security industry is moving. It will be more complicated than just 2 networks and it should be based on behavior and trust rather than device type. Consumers don't yet have the tools to monitor/categorize devices based on behavior, but some corporations (like mine) offer platforms that automatically move risky devices to network segments to mitigate risk.
stordoff 9y ago
That's precisely what I do - all of my trusted devices are behind a second router[0], with anything untrusted (family devices, devices that only need Internet access and not e.g. access to my NAS) being effectively treated as if they weren't on my local network. Far from bulletproof though - it limits risk, but does nothing to prevent those trusted devices from becoming infecting and having essentially free-reign (which when you use Windows as your main OS is far from a theoretical concern). [0] Introduces a double-NAT, which isn't ideal, but hasn't caused me any issues in practice.

One simple way to improve your security at home is to have a "guest" WiFi network which is separate from your real one and which all these questionable IoT devices can use.

kbenson 9y ago

That doesn't necessarily prevent them from infecting each other and other people/devices on the internet, or being used in attacks. It's sort of like living in a neighborhood and having a rock pile you enjoy the aesthetics of, but know it's prone to having rattlesnakes move in, and instead of fixing the rattlesnake problem either as it happens or at the root, just putting a wall around your property excluding the pile. Sure, you're mostly safe, but when animals/children get bit, your solution starts to look quite a bit worse.

gtrubetskoy 9y ago
Agreed, it's definitely not full-proof by any stretch. But it's amazing how many people enter their WiFi password into devices they really have no control over that can then for example sniff your network, slowly but steadily crack your passwords, possibilities are endless.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  If that is a security problem, you probably have a much bigger problem anyway. Secure passwords cannot be cracked, the public internet is hostile anyway and you should be protecting your communication with strong cryptography. Pretty much the only sensible reason why you should protect your internal network from access (including sniffing) is because you might have IoT on it that tend to have terrible security. Putting them all in the same, but separate, network, essentially achieves nothing.

thephyber 9y ago

This is called network segmentation and it's the direction that the network security industry is moving. It will be more complicated than just 2 networks and it should be based on behavior and trust rather than device type. Consumers don't yet have the tools to monitor/categorize devices based on behavior, but some corporations (like mine) offer platforms that automatically move risky devices to network segments to mitigate risk.

stordoff 9y ago

That's precisely what I do - all of my trusted devices are behind a second router[0], with anything untrusted (family devices, devices that only need Internet access and not e.g. access to my NAS) being effectively treated as if they weren't on my local network. Far from bulletproof though - it limits risk, but does nothing to prevent those trusted devices from becoming infecting and having essentially free-reign (which when you use Windows as your main OS is far from a theoretical concern). [0] Introduces a double-NAT, which isn't ideal, but hasn't caused me any issues in practice.