Top 5 most and least secure smart devices

March 01, 2022

We were in beta for over a year, finding a permanent place in over 160 homes across America. During this time, we monitored 4,000+ smart devices totaling more than 27,000 hours of data and used our findings to support a sophisticated security and privacy system for users. It’s pretty neat. Our advanced AI analyzes the reams of data we collect to identify patterns and behaviors. These patterns allow us to know what’s normal, what to expect from each device, and when everything is working as intended. And, because we know what’s normal, we also know when something suspicious is happening. If something suspicious happens, like a device contacting a bad IP address, we immediately alert the user and help fix the problem.

We call devices that have the highest tendency for privacy and security risks ‘vulnerable devices’. In a majority of cases, vulnerable devices will have open ports; of the 1,447 devices we monitored with open ports, 169 (12%) of those devices exhibited reported vulnerabilities.

So, on to the list.

Let’s start with the juicy stuff: devices with the most reported vulnerabilities:

1. Controllers - 45%

2. Computers - 25%

3. Cable boxes - 17%

4. Smart home devices - 10%

5. Media players - 6%

Computers often have their own security and privacy systems, such as antivirus and security suites, that can combat malware and vulnerabilities. However, this type of protection just isn’t available for everything else on your network (until now!).

During our beta, we also found devices that showed no reported vulnerabilities. This doesn’t mean they’re 100% secure, or that they will never be vulnerable, just that started out being well-engineered from a security perspective. Even so, they still could be hacked or become infected with malware. That’s why we monitor every device all day, every day. If something happens, we catch it.

That being said, here are our top 5 most secure smart devices:

1. Smartphones 

2. Sound systems

3. Voice assistants

4. Smart TVs

5. Streaming dongles

If you’d like to become part of our Early Access and get insights into the behavior of all your devices, it’s not too late!