Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) recently found that the smart bulbs that come equipped with infrared interfaces, the same interface that the remote control on your TV uses, well they can be controlled by hackers.
Once connected, hackers can send commands to smart bulbs to either steal data or masquerade as other connected devices on your network and harvest data from anything connected to it. The researchers did mention that some smart bulbs connect to a home network without requiring a smart home hub, and if these smart bulbs are infrared-enabled, hackers can get into them and then worm their way into files stored on your computer.
The Takeaway
If you absolutely have to have smart bulbs in your house, which you might want to consider as they are pretty cool, look for ones that use a smart home hub rather than one that connects directly your Wifi. Of course, it’s best if smart bulb manufacturers were to implement security measures to limit the level of access that smart bulbs have to other connected home devices but who knows when that’s going to be. Hopefully that helps.
Stay safe out there.