This morning at Mobile World Congress Barcelona, we announced the latest in protection from Avast — Avast Smart Life, a new Internet of Things (IoT) security services platform. Our strategy is to leverage our large, intelligent network to continue expanding the ways we protect you from today’s latest threats, no matter where you are in the mobile connected world we live in. Whether at home, the office or on-the-go, Avast Smart Life uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology to identify and block threats so that consumers and small businesses can keep their IoT devices, networks and sensitive data secure.

IoT vulnerabilities

Smart thermostats, smart speakers, digital personal assistants, and the like are on the rise. By 2025, IoT growth is predicted to hit over 75 billion connected things; that’s more than triple the amount today. And as these numbers grow, so does the concern for security threats. Just because they are smarter does not mean they are safer. In fact, every new connected device you put in your home is another potential target for the bad guys to attack. These new internet of things (IoT) products are developed for convenience and automation, not necessarily to be easily secured. That is why most smart homes need this extra layer of protection to guard against these threats.

The internet of things is a category of devices that is gaining critical mass, making them more attractive to the bad guys to target. When cybercriminals hijack them, they can be compromised in many ways — used to spy, to blackmail, and even to gain physical access to the home. Standard protection doesn’t apply here because IoT devices are so different and varied and usually do not allow you to add security software to them. The key to protecting IoT devices is intelligent cloud-based security that monitors for threats at the network level — and that’s exactly what our solution does.

New products on the horizon

We will continue to have more new products powered by the Avast AI platform.  One we will release later this year is Avast Smart Home Security.  This easy to use service is designed to learn the typical usage patterns of the IoT devices on your home network in order to detect any behavioral anomalies that may occur that might indicate an attack is in progress. It also detects privacy violations, botnet attacks, and malware threats. For example, if a device is turned on at an unusual time or begins transmitting data to an unknown entity, these could be indications that the device is being hijacked. In this situation, Avast Smart Home Security will shut down the attack and alert the family immediately via a mobile app before any harm can be done.

At Avast, we are committed to protecting our users wherever they are. We have one of the largest AI networks and one of the most experienced teams in the security industry that helps us do just that. We know what it takes to tackle this new challenge. I look forward to telling you more about our IoT solutions as they roll out later this year. 

Avast will be talking about IoT security at Mobile World Congress 2018 Barcelona in hall 7, stand 7C60.