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Canonical, maker of Ubuntu Linux and its Internet of Things variant, has discovered the obvious – that people cannot be trusted to secure their connected devices.
Thibaut Rouffineau, evangelist for Ubuntu Core and the Internet of Things, admitted late last week that developers and IoT device makers know people seldom update the firmware of connected devices. But, he argues, they probably don't realize how bad the security situation has become.
The distro maker says it surveyed 2,000 folks about how they dealt with connected devices. It found that less than a third of respondents (31 per cent) installed updates as soon as they were available. Some 40 per cent never knowingly updated their devices.
"In other words, consumers are leaving their devices open to exploits and hacks, from DDoS attacks to invasions of personal privacy or theft of personal data," said Rouffineau.
Why such disinterest? According to Rouffineau, almost two thirds of respondents felt that keeping software updated – their security – was not their responsibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:34PM
Not to mention supplying them with the wireless password. This shit doesn't happen to innocent victims. It happens to negligent idiots with too much money thinking it's all magic.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 22 2016, @04:51PM
To be fair, that's very much something computer companies are encouraging these days. "Just put the CD in and MAGIC!" No, it's not magic; it's a bunch of code that tries to plan for various contingencies, but it's not psychic, or magic, and it doesn't know perfectly what you want every time.
You'd think it would be a better idea to have the thing prompt you for a password out of the box before it's usable. But impatient people would probably bitch about that, so instead we have thousands of people wide open to hacking.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"