Global IoT Cybersecurity Labels - ThreatWire

By Shannon Morse 

Last week, the White House met with government leaders, private sector businesses, and academic institutions to discuss strengthening cybersecurity, and one of the core topics at this meeting was securing smarthome devices, also known as “IoT” or “internet of things” products. That can be as far reaching as internet connected baby monitors, kitchen appliances, smart tvs, pet tech, anything that talks to the internet. One main component of this meeting was creating a labelling program to offer consumers peace of mind when choosing which technology is brought into their homes and to incentivize manufacturers to meet higher cybersecurity standards.

Officials discussed creating a label that was globally recognized across borders, so consumers could make more security and privacy focused and informed decisions.

Representatives included folks from Amazon, NIST, Comcast, the CTA, Google, Sony, Intel and more. The White House announced that, based on the meeting, they intend to start a rollout of a labeling program to begin in Spring of 2023, which seems soon for government work, but a system has been in the works for quite some time, with the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission bringing this up in a March 2020 report.

No news yet on what this label would look like though we do have a template created by Carnegie Mellon, or how ratings would be justified to consumers, but we do have some general idea based on reporting from CyberScoop. The White House has stated the ratings would be based on vulnerability remediation, amount of information collected on consumers, whether data is encrypted, and interoperability with other products.”

The US may look to Singapore as a template for the creation of these labels, since Singapore already has one that is also recognized by Finland and Germany, with Germany announcing this last week. The countries rating system is already set up and used for consumer devices, with medical devices to be included soon as well.

LINKS: 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/20/statement-by-nsc-spokesperson-adrienne-watson-on-the-biden-harris-administrations-effort-to-secure-household-internet-enabled-devices/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/everything-we-know-about-the-white-houses-iot-security-labeling-effort/

https://www.solarium.gov/report

https://www.cylab.cmu.edu/news/2020/05/27-iot-labels-consumers.html

https://www.cyberscoop.com/white-house-iot-labeling-program/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/singapore-germany-to-mutually-recognise-iot-cybersecurity-labels/