Back in August 2017, four US senators first presented a bill that would regulate security for IoT devices. After long last, the newest version of the bill was introduced for a vote in both the Senate and the House on Monday. If it passes, the federal IoT security bill would require recommendations from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on security standards the federal government should follow. With the new version of the bill, lawmakers are looking to establish a law that would require minimum security standards for any IoT devices that the federal government uses. In addition, the bill would require NIST to review that policy every five years. The article below provides all the detail, and also a copy of the bill itself that can be accessed.
Connected devices are notorious for their shoddy security and Congress is hoping to fix that.
Members of the US Senate and House of Representatives introduced the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act on Monday, hoping to bring legislative action to the emerging technology.
Connected devices are expected to boom to 20.4 billion units by 2020, but they don’t all have the same levels of security. Hackers often target IoT devices that don’t have built-in security, leading to problems like default passwords and vulnerabilities that can’t be fixed.
