By Matt Strahl

Many people lock their doors to prevent thieves from gaining easy access to their home — while leaving it accessible to people thousands of miles away.

Smart devices can be found in millions of homes and apartments for virtually any purpose, such as powering refrigerators, washers and dryers, wall outlets, and even lightbulbs. Many are designed for easy use: just take them out of the box, turn them on, and they’re ready to go. However, this ease of use can also lead to challenges with security.

Smart devices can potentially offer a way for malicious actors to enter a home’s network or take over the device and access computers that have sensitive information, such as banking or tax records. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to secure your devices:

Create unique passwords for each device — the longer, the better!Many people do not know or bother to change default security passwords for smart devices. Hackers can easily learn default passwords and guess common phrases. Passphrases — unique phrases as long as a sentence — can make it much more difficult for hackers to gain unauthorized access.

Review and set device settings to maximize device security.Visit the security tab of the app for your device and review options, such as activity tracking, to limit information sharing. Also, make sure that regular updates are scheduled. This will ensure that updates addressing vulnerabilities are regularly installed.

Turn on multifactor authentication whenever possible. This will help prevent unauthorized access by requiring a second authentication method, such as a link or text emailed to a registered device, to sign in to an app or device. This can help if a password or passphrase is stolen or otherwise compromised.

Segment your devices on separate home internet networks from devices with sensitive information. While requiring more setup, this could significantly reduce the possibility that smart devices could be used to hack into computers or devices with sensitive information. The key here is to separate the devices so they cannot share the same network — such as creating a guest network or using an older router to separate networks for devices.

Turn off unnecessary features.Many devices have a multitude of features that homeowners never utilize. Turning off these features removes the risks associated with them.

Be proactive and take steps to reduce the risk of your smart devices providing unauthorized access to your home’s internet network. That way, your home will be welcome to only the devices and people you intend. 

Matt Strahl is the energy advisor at NineStar Connect in Greenfield, Indiana