Imagine that you are lying on the sofa on Sunday afternoon after a rough Saturday night. You don’t want to talk to anyone or leave the sofa, but you need something to eat. Ten years ago this would be a mission impossible. However, times have changed and they change very quickly. Nowadays, it is possible to order food online. When the delivery guy arrives, you will open the door through an application on your smartphone and tell him to walk to the living room. If you don’t believe that the delivery guy has left the building, it is possible to watch the webcam at the front door from your mobile device. All these actions are possible, without even moving from the sofa once… But these actions can also be done by someone else if they have access to your smartphone.
Smart homes filled with connected products are loaded with possibilities to make our lives easier, more convenient and more comfortable. BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, expect the number of smart home devices shipped will grow from 83 million in 2015 to 193 million in 2020. So we can conclude that these smart home devices will increase popularity in the near future. This includes all smart appliances, smart home safety and security systems and smart home energy equipment. (Business Insider, 2016)
These devices can help reduce costs and conserve energy, but can be more expensive and vulnerable for hackers.
This is not only the case for residential real estate, but also for commercial real estate. New developed buildings are full with smart devices, to conserve energy and reduce costs. These devices are all part of the ‘new working space’. The interconnectedness of real estate owners’ systems and tenant IT systems form a potential cyber risk for both parties. These commercial real estate firms recognize that not just their own office infrastructure but also the buildings they develop are effectively now IT assets instead of only brick and mortar. (Donkers et al.,2017)
Would you spend money to make you building/house smarter, but also a lot more vulnerable for cyber-attacks? Or would you be more careful with these smart devices?
Meola A., Internet of things smart home automation, http://www.businessinsider.com/ (19/12/16)
Donkers et al. , 2017, ‘ Rising cyber risk in real estate through the rise of smart buildings.’ Deloitte.
Great post! Especially in a world where we are making progress in renewable energy sources, but are still not quite there yet, it would be great to have every household become so economically. While I think it is great that these developments enable us to live a bit more ‘energy aware’, I do think that some future systems feel very unsafe, for example, the application with which you can open your front door. Everyone now has a smartphone and IT security has been getting better and better, however the hackers also get better and better. The future burglars would not need to be strong or light-fingered, they would just have to be able to be an amazing hacker to find their way into your home. I’d still much rather lock the door with my key than have it connected to my smartphone. Besides, if you’re a clumsy person, what would happen if you’d lose your phone with all those connections to your house on it?