This is the second in WTOP’s consumer series Smart Holidays, which explores concerns associated with smart devices and how consumers can better protect themselves this holiday season.
Read Part 1: Smart Holidays: Protect your smart doorbell from hackers
Read Part 3: Where not to charge your phone
Smart displays are the must-have holiday technology this holiday, but this season’s upgrade to the smart speaker, which allows you to video-chat using a motion sensor camera inside your home, has some privacy drawbacks.
The holiday ads are everywhere for smart displays. There’s Facebook’s Portal, Google Nest Hub, Amazon’s Echo Show and a handful of others.
“People are looking for new ways to get into your stuff every day,” said Tracy Wallraven, the chief of cybersecurity at the D.C. Forensics Lab.
Wallraven told WTOP that criminals who would want to hack into the new video display probably are not looking to watch your mom cook dinner. They’re more likely trying to get into her home network to gain access to data on her computer, such as financial records.
Wallraven has some suggestions: “Making sure she understands wi-fi; she has a strong wi-fi password. Making sure her other devices are protected with any sort of antivirus or firewall just to keep them out on that side of the fence,” she said.
In fact, Wallraven suggests gifting antivirus software along with a smart display, to ensure that the network it’s connected to has the latest safeguards. And go ahead and allow the updates.
“Anytime you get a firmware update or any kind of patch or update, it’s usually fixing some sort of security exploit. So it’s really important to stay on top of those,” she said.
