Cloud shutdown can strand smart devices
A connected device that depends on a manufacturer's service stops working when that service is switched off.
Perfectly functional hardware becomes useless because a company was sold, pivoted or closed. It is a security matter as well as a consumer one: a device left running without updates, still on the network, still holding credentials, and now with nobody responsible for it at all.
More on IoT and embedded
- A default password scales into a fleet vulnerabilityOne word, printed a million times
- Physical access changes the embedded threat modelThe lid was the threat model
- Firmware updates are a long-term security promiseYou sold the box, you signed up for the years
- Secure boot protects the startup chainEach link checks the next
- Device identity should be uniqueAll answering to one name
- Sensors can be fooled without hacking softwareNo code was touched