Cable’s next generation, 10G networks, holds the promise to deliver symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds that are 100 times faster than what some consumers are currently experiencing today. This great leap forward will enable services and experiences that will drive internet innovation for years to come. It is our mutual responsibility to assure that devices we connect to these blazing 10 gigabit internet connections, are updated and patched, free from default passwords and use proper authentication and authorization.

The lack of following basic cyber-security principals surfaced in the late Fall of 2016, when many popular sites such as Twitter, Amazon, Reddit and Netflix, were unreachable for several periods, lasting hours. The cause was a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack coming from hundreds of thousands of compromised internet of things (IoT) devices. Traffic from these devices overwhelmed the DNS service provider dyn.com and effectively blocked customers and users from reaching these popular Internet locations for hours at a time.

As we approach a world where households are connected at gigabit and greater speeds, building secure devices and getting them in the hands of consumers is essential. Over the last several years CableLabs has been engaged with standard organizations such as, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), to draft specifications and guide security baselines for IoT devices. This work has culminated in the release of OCF’s international ISO\IEC specification for IoT interoperability.

Read the full blog by Kyle Haefner via CableLabs.