Ry Crist for CNet: Less than a month ago, hackers took control of an ocean of unsecured connected home devices, then essentially crashed the entire internet by using them to flood the web’s largest internet management company with bogus traffic. Now, the makers of smart gadgets that communicate using Z-Wave are ratcheting up their security standards to help reassure consumers that their products don’t come with glaring vulnerabilities.
“No one can afford to sit on their hands and wait,” says Mitchell Klein, executive director of the Z-Wave Alliance. “Consumers deserve IoT devices in their home to have the strongest levels of security possible. IoT smart home technologies that don’t act will be left behind.”
The new standards are called the “Security 2” framework, or S2 for short. Aside from shoring up encryption standards for transmissions between sensors, cameras, and thermostats that broadcast using Z-Wave, S2 also mandates new pairing procedures for each device — namely, unique PIN or QR codes on the devices themselves. Cont’d…
