A new bill introduced in the Senate Tuesday by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., would establish a new set of cybersecurity standards for companies that hope to sell so-called “Internet of Things” devices to federal agencies. Inconspicuously named the “Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017,” the legislation mandates that any IoT product sold to the government must be able to receive software patches in case of a discovered vulnerability. In addition, the bill calls for manufacturers to discontinue the practice of hard-coding passwords into the firmware of devices — a process which is already condemned by security experts. Typically, a hard-coded password is hidden from the user and is intended for the manufacturer’s use only. But hackers have taken advantage of hardcoded passwords to break into IoT devices and incorporate them into distributed denial of service attacks. Notably, the bill also encourages curious researchers to […]
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