Heh good luck with that…..
Australia seems to be interested in taking a stand against insecure IoT devices.
Internet-connected products from baby monitors to sports shoes will soon bear a mandatory Australian cyber security consumer rating amid growing alarm at hacking of everyday devices.
The Turnbull government is pushing the technology industry to come up with its own consumer advice rating that could be a “cyber kangaroo” logo giving a tick of approval or a star system similar to the health stars on some packaged food, and energy stars on electrical appliances.
I mean yeah, good on ya mate and all, but that horse is so far gone, you ain’t ever going to get any sort of control (security) over these sorts of devices any time soon.
Now, should we just give up then, and let anything come into the country?
Well, no, but nothing about their approach thus far has left me with any confidence that they can manage this intelligently. (For example, they want encryption, but not for the bad guys).
He said he recently began talks with the US and Britain about harmonising the three countries’ approach to the problem in order to set an example to the rest of the world.
Mr Tehan said any regime in Australia would ultimately need to cover imported products as well as those made here. Most basic household web-enabled devices were made in Asia, he said.
“What we want industry to do is come up with standards that they think are minimum requirements for IoT devices.
“And that ultimately we want to apply to imported products as well.
“If you’re a reputable manufacturer of baby monitors, if it becomes public that your devices aren’t cyber secure, my view is that’s going to hurt your reputation. That is what we are hoping will drive the change.”
Here is a bit of the problem, they are talking about three very different countries, USA, UK and Aus. Yeah. Good luck getting those three to agree.
But, the last sentence is where it really unravels…. They say that simply shaming the company is going to cause a change. No. It won’t.
I really don’t think that this is enough to drive the change.
So, yeah, good to have the conversation, and start the ball moving, but I sort of feel sorry for my geek brothers down under, buying the cool hardware is going to get even harder and more expensive than it already is.
