The Internet of Things is giving cybercriminals millions of new vulnerable targets. Internet-enabled devices are plagued by shoddy security and lax regulation. Everything from baby monitors to the electric grid is susceptible to attack as millions more things get connected to the web—20 billion by 2020, up from 6 billion today, according to market research firm Gartner.
The number of connections will continue to soar as it gets cheaper and easier to slap a wireless chip and microprocessor on virtually any product. The ever-growing list of objects that have Wi-Fi includes drones, dolls, teakettles, televisions, lights, locks, refrigerators, thermostats, speakers, virtual reality goggles and bathroom scales.
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