Symantec: Common Security Ailments In Smart Home Technology

Symantec surveyed 50 smart home devices and found pervasive security issues — no enforcement of strong passwords or mutual authentication, ~20% transmitted data without encryption, numerous application-layer vulnerabilities (path traversal, unrestricted file upload leading to RCE, remote file inclusion, SQL injection), cleartext local data transmission, and rare signed firmware updates; researchers also demonstrated an ability to remotely trigger a smart door lock, underscoring that insecure IoT devices storing sensitive data are likely to become attractive targets for attackers.