The article explains the 3 steps to be followed to secure IOT devices on home network. In todays environment, every home is a smart home. There are are a lot of devices apart from your laptops, desktops and mobiles in a home network.
As opposed to the normal devices, the operating system of IOT devices are not your traditional Windows or Android. This would be proprietary to the manufacturer of these devices. Due to this , installing an antivirus software may not work since the operating system would not support it.
To resolve this problem, all security threats which are targetted on a home network should be mitigated by the router which is connected to the internet.
You must have a wireless router which has inbuilt firewall.
Step 1 – Secure IOT devices on home network with firewall routers
Normal routers do not have inbuilt firewalls. This would make your home network vulnerable to internet based attacks. To mitigate this. you need to have a secure wireless router with inbuilt firewall. This would ensure that all threats are blocked at the router and does not reach the internal network.
Netgear has a suite of products which supports inbuilt security. These are the netgear wireless router with armor . Netegar armor is a built in service which is available in netgear advanced routers. The following are the main features of netgear armor.
Netgear armor device security management
This feature is specifically designed for IOT devices. The feature is used to block hackers from accessing the IOT devices on the network like thermostats, baby monitors, refrigerators. Whenever there is an unauthorized access attempt from a device, an instant alert would be send, which can then be blocked from the app.
Netgear armor anomaly detection
Anomaly detection is another feature which helps protect smart home devices. If an IOT device on the network attempts to connect to a maliciuos URL, the request would be immediately blocked by the netgear armor software. This is done by the advanced machine learning capability available in netgear armor, which would study normal behavioral patterns and trigger deviations encountered from the same.
Netgear armor vulnerability Assessment
Vulnerability assessment is peformed on devices in the home network. Devices with network security flaws like backdoors, weak passwords are identified and reported.
Wireless router with netgear armor
The following are two wireless routers with the netgear armor feature.
NETGEAR 4-Stream WiFi 6 Router (R6700AX)
The NETGEAR 4-Stream WiFi 6 Router (R6700AX) supports the netgear armor subscription feature. This is a dual band router which supports gigabit speeds with uninterrupted streaming, gaming and video conferencing. The router also supports fetaures with which you can check data usage and internet speed.
NETGEAR Nighthawk 6-Stream AX5400 WiFi 6 Router
The NETGEAR Nighthawk 6-Stream AX5400 WiFi 6 Router also supports the netgear armor feature. This router is faster than the former and provide speed upto 5400 Mbps. The router has a USB port which can be used to share your storage device on the network.
Step 2 – Secure IOT devices on home network by upgrading wifi security
The home wifi should be secured with strong passwords. This would ensure that hackers are unable to access your network using the wifi channel. This is one of the common ways a home network is compromised and the devices on the network are exploited.
Strong passwords can also be hacked if a weak encryption protocol like WEP is used. It should also be ensured that encryption protocol like WPA is used for protection.
By having a wireless router with netgear armor feature, you would be notified if an unauthorized user gains access to your wifi network in case a hacker is succesful in the attempt of breaking the wifi password.
Step 3 – Secure IOT devices on home network by firmware upgrade
Ensure that your IOT firmware is upgraded to the latest version. This would ensure that proper security patches are applied on the operating system and all vulnerabilities are mitigated.
Conclusion
It can be understood that to protect IOT devices on home network, wireless router with inbuilt firewall is highly recommended. This would provide total protection to all devices on your network along with detailed reporting. Netgear wireless routers with armor feature are highly recommended for this scenario.
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