How Is the Internet of Things Industry Responding to the Cybersecurity Challenges of the Smart Home?

In this article, we investigate the privacy and security challenges of the smart home as perceived by the industry, with findings relating to cybersecurity awareness, transparency on legal data use, malicious data use, regulation issues, liability, and market incentives for cybersecurity; we also reveal how the industry has been responding to these challenges. Based on survey findings, we outlined a series of socio-technical challenges to smart home adoption. To understand these findings in more depth, we investigated qualitatively how these challenges were perceived and responded to by organizations in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. We interviewed seven experts from six organizations involved in the design, development, or review of consumer IoT devices and services including both businesses and NGOs. Thematic analysis focused on two main themes, that is, responses to privacy and responses to security challenges of smart home adoption. Our study revealed that industry stakeholders are looking to address these adoption challenges by providing new technical solutions to mitigate the privacy and security risk of the smart home, producing new standards and influencing regulation, as well as building up communities of learning surrounding common issues. With this knowledge, industry stakeholders can take steps toward increasing smart home acceptability for consumers.