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Let's say you were in charge of fixing this from the advertising side of things. What warnings would you add to this device so that even tech-illiterate users understand the risks of e.g. connecting this baby monitor up to the internet? Simple stuff you can fit on a pop-up or side of the box, because the user isn't reading the 100-page manual that probably already warns about this.
A big part of why you can just hand a toaster to someone with no further explanation is that people actually do know a lot about electricity and household appliances and can avoid the biggest problems. Nobody's dumping a live toaster into the sink to clean it.
Manufacturers should probably take this lower level of knowledge into account, but it's not as easy as "just make the device idiot-proof, like toasters!"
I guess manufacturers are in a tough position there because the lower level of knowledge means that quite uncomfortable things have to be put on the packaging. They can get away with putting the warnings in the 100 page manual for the toaster; it would put off buyers if the toaster they were looking at proeminently displayed "This toasted WILL kill you if you plug it in and take it for a bath!". Similarly, a baby monitor whose box said something like "Unless properly secured, this monitor can allow strangers to connect and listen in or talk to your child" will find itself selling less than the one that omits it.
I suppose the best move is to spin it as a feature. Put it proudly on the box! "Crowdsource your child's safety with the default password mode!"
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I don't believe any user manuals actually warn about any of these things. The manufacturers simply do not care about security, because they don't have to, be it built-in, in manuals, or in advertisements.
Totally and completely agreed. I started off saying that one way we could fix this is to do something extremely simple, like banning default passwords. No manufacturer is going to put on their box whether they have a default password or not, so many consumers aren't going to know.
There has been some efforts in the US to create a Cyber Trust mark, where that is an indication that they have been built to some sort of standards (that aren't that far off from these regulations). This is a plausible approach, though we likely won't see whether it would have been effective (are consumers going to be paying close attention for this mark on a box full of ten other certification marks?), because they're probably just all going to bring their devices up to the UK standard. Could have been an approach, though.
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