Britain’s new ‘world first’ laws crack down on smart gadget cyber attacks

All internet connected smart devices will be required to meet minimum security standards under what the UK government has dubbed as world first laws, effective from Monday to protect consumers and businesses from hacking and cyber-attacks.

Under the new regime, manufacturers will be banned from having weak, easily guessable default passwords like admin or 12345 and if there is a common password, the user will be prompted to change it on start-up. An investigation conducted by the Which? consumer group found that a UK home filled with smart devices could be exposed to more than 12,000 hacking attacks from across the world in a single week, with a total of 2,684 attempts to guess weak default passwords on just five devices.