The most terrifying thought concerning smart home privacy is the idea that my baby monitor is being watched by anyone other than myself. In the era of privacy beaches, your smart home devices might be leaking your data, and you need to shut that down ASAP.

Smart devices, from your thermostat to your washing machine, utilize IoT (Internet of Things) technology, which means that they’re embedded in a network that exchanges data with other devices over the internet. But what sort of data could a washing machine collect that could pose a potential privacy issue? Well, that simple smart appliance is connected to the same network as your laptop or computer, so hackers can bounce from a lightbulb to a PC.

We live in a time where we’ve traded our privacy for convenience, and while these companies have gathered a ton of data on us already, it doesn’t mean we need to keep the toxic river flow going. Let’s go over how to secure your devices.

Come on now, don’t walk around with your username as “admin” and password as “password” for your router or any of your smart devices. You might as well be handing the manila envelope of your life directly to a hacker.

If you’re looking for convenience, use a strong password manager to autogenerate a password for you. Using personal information in a password is almost as bad as whatever the default is. Simple words are also ill-advised. If you really want to know how fast a hacker can break your password, Hive Systems produced a convenient graphic for you to get the idea.

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