Author name: Trey Pascador

The U.S. government said Monday that it will release in the coming weeks a set of principles for securing the Internet of Things, or Internet-connected devices, which were employed partly by hackers to carry out Friday’s cyberattacks that disrupted major U.S. websites. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said Monday his department is “closely […]

What the hell is Dyn? On Friday, the internet wasn’t quite silenced, but it was certainly muffled. A cyberattack aimed at knocking many of the world’s major websites offline made targets as varied as Twitter, Airbnb, Etsy, and The New York Times inaccessible to a large swath of internet users on the United States’ East Coast

Internet-connected devices are more frequently found in households — covering everything from thermostats to toys, blu-ray players to baby monitors — but there are security trade-offs that come with the convenience of being able to turn on your home air conditioner from work or watch your children on camera while you dine at a restaurant.

USA TODAY’s Elizabeth Weise tells how to protect home devices from hackers and says to be wary of refrigerators, stoves and other connected products that don’t have password protection. Worried your Internet connection is too slow? You can check your router to see if any rogue devices are using your connection.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto) SAN FRANCISCO