7 Deadly Sins of Home Networking: How to Stay Cyber Secure

As residential technologies become more scrutinized over their potential liability to hacking threats, security and smart home installers can provide customers a safety net. Here’s how.

7 Deadly Sins of Home Networking: How to Stay Cyber Secure

6. Being Too Quick to Reboot

According to Jensen, too many technicians reboot the entire home network at the first sign of a problem. “I see this all too often, especially on weekends or those 6 p.m. Friday nights when nobody wants to be working,” he says. “There is a single device not working, but instead of working your way backwards through the line to determine exactly where the point of failure is, the tech just pulls power to the entire rack to see if a reboot will fix it. Half the time that’s going to work,” he says. “Unfortunately it’s probably going to happen again and this could ruin another Saturday when you have to return for the same issue. Taking the time to diagnose the issue the first time will save yourself some time, and again save the end client some frustration.”

Jensen says that most gear will also lose their logs upon reboot, so the tech will have also cleared up any hope of pulling those logs to diagnose the problem should the gear not come back up after the reboot.

7. Not Advising Clients to Consult with You

“As an integrator, you can build the network, secure it, put in VPNs, but if the homeowner buys a nanny cam, plugs it in and doesn’t change the password and user name, that has now left open ports. Anybody can now log in,” says Fulmer. “There has to be interaction between the homeowner and the integrator. Just give us a call so we can give them instructions. We tell our clients: ‘Just call — it’s free.’”

Score Points by Securing 11 Key Smart Home Areas

At custom integration firm Fultech Solutions, the company uses the CTA Connected Home Online Tool to full advantage, both internally with the technicians as well as externally with customers. For the technicians, it is a guideline to help them remember what to do and what to say.

“There are a lot of things you do repeatedly that need to be implemented on the network. If you don’t have a checklist, even the best technician is going to forget some steps,” says Fultech President Dan Fulmer. “Whether you carry a paper copy or reference it online — it is a reminder of what to do. At the same time, it reminds us to tell the clients exactly what we are going to do, and opens up the opportunity to explain why we do it.”

The CTA Connected Home Security Checklist offers step-by-step actions to undertake for multiple product areas, and after completing it dealers can use the Online Tool to receive a rating and a report showing how the system scored (the passwords, network and modems & routers sections are required to fill in).

The 11 key areas:

  1. Passwords
  2. Network
  3. Modems & Routers
  4. VPN
  5. Z-Wave
  6. ZigBee
  7. Beacons (NFC/RFID)
  8. Bluetooth
  9. A/V Components (TVs/receivers, game systems)
  10. Home Security Devices
  11. Mobile Devices

“You can talk to the customer about this stuff but you have to stop when their eyes glaze over,” admits Fulmer. “If they are interested, they will ask questions and we will offer specifics. But usually we stay very broad. Once they start getting bored, you have to move on, but we find that most customers are pretty interested in the basics.”

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One response to “7 Deadly Sins of Home Networking: How to Stay Cyber Secure”

  1. josaih says:

    didnt know this, thanks!

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