Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Thursday December 22 2016, @09:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the Mirai-IoT-Botnet dept.

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday December 23 2016, @04:26AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday December 23 2016, @04:26AM (#444923) Journal

    It's not that I didn't know there were risks. It's a judgment call. Is it worth my time to thoroughly investigate networking hardware? I really do not want to spend time on that. Should I have to, to avoid corporate control of my LAN? I should also spend time backing up my data, setting up anonymous browsing and file transfer services, keeping Windows on a tight leash and scanning for viruses, blocking spam, jailbreaking my tablets and smartphones, flashing Rockbox to my music players, hacking around DRM on inkjet cartridges and copy protection on DVDs, etc. I've tried to find broadband Internet service that's not enrolled in one of the more recent abominations from Big Media, the Copyright Alert System, but so far, no luck.

    I do most of that crap, and I get tired of the endless battling in these long wars. I don't want to be a reactionary system admin, I have more interesting and positive work I wish to do, like keep up with the latest in software engineering. I still feel confident that the people will eventually win these wars. But it's been over 30 years now, and many vendors are still bedazzled over the whole idea of intellectual property, still think they're within their rights to lock up information, accuse the whole world of wanting to pirate their works, spy on their customers, demand ridiculous legal protections at great public expense, run absurd and insulting propaganda campaigns, and whine about the very laws of nature making DRM impossible to successfully implement.

    When will this attitude ever change? I'd like to see the law enforcement badges and the scare language and propaganda banned from rental DVDs and all other video products. Most definitely, I wish we'd sanction companies who write unenforceable and overreaching EULAs, put a permanent end to that practice. Maybe precedent could be the case over the billboard in a predominantly poor part of a city warning voters that it was a federal crime to cast a vote under a fake ID, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. It was so obviously designed to scare voters away, and the courts ordered the billboard taken down.

    We've made great strides in product safety. Manufacturers used to be a lot more cavalier about the dangers of their more dangerous products, too quick to blame it all on the customers whenever someone got hurt. Automobiles in particular have made huge advances in safety since the 1950s. Yet they remain one of the leading causes of early death. There used to be all kinds of use of radioactive materials before we understood the dangers of radiation. Now we don't use it casually-- no more radioactive watch dials! So I have hope.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2