During spring cleaning, don’t forget smart home security

The first thing you should do is change your passwords and look into a password manager. Changing your passwords periodically is an easy safety measure that ensures you’re not using old and easily-guessable passwords. Many programs and services will automatically remind you to change your passwords, especially if it’s related to work.

Another source of security is to enable two-factor authentication (2FA.) 2FA creates a second layer of hard encryption to get your data. You don’t need to know all the encryption details; you usually just need a phone number or a second device to get into your data. For example, say you want to sign in to a service. That service will call you or send a random code to your phone, or display the code on a secondary device. You place that code into your sign-in device within a specific time limit to sign in.

Ensuring that you’re the only one signing into your devices keeps your security high. You can then choose to trust specific devices, allowing you to log in without using 2FA every time.

You should also periodically look at the list of trusted devices to ensure nothing old or unused is on there — or worse, that an unknown device has made its way on the list.

It’s best to enable automatic updates, but you should definitely take a day to check all of your devices and operating systems to make sure everything is up to date. Besides introducing new features and quality of life changes, companies use software updates to increase the security features of their devices.

You’re going to want to make sure all devices in the ecosystem are also up to date. If one cloud-based device is vulnerable, it can create a hole in the entire ecosystem. Remember that individual devices need to be checked. For example, if you have multiple smart speakers, check that each speaker is running the latest version of the software.

If you have the means, upgrade your old devices. Planned obsolescence isn’t a confirmed tech manufacturer policy, but companies do eventually stop supporting devices. When devices reach their end of life, they no longer receive those security software updates and are prone to newer means of security hacking.

You don’t need to always have the latest and greatest device, but technology is highly susceptible if it’s no longer supported but still connects to the internet. End of life generally happens after five years, and tech can improve significantly in that time.

Upgrading your devices is particularly important in light of the recent Wyze news that the original version of the camera suffered from a security vulnerability for three years, but only the subsequent versions were patched.

Lastly, try consolidating your devices into one ecosystem or brand. While this may seem counterintuitive, it generally makes devices easier to manage. Having all devices under Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, or Amazon’s Alexa presents one place to look over your smart home. This can be used as a quick stop to organize and check to make sure devices haven’t been desynced from your home and gone rogue.