A new 2026 IoT Security Landscape Report from Bitdefender and NETGEAR analyzed 5.4 billion security events across approximately 10.4 million connected homes, finding that smart TVs, smart plugs and network storage devices account for 67.1% of observed device vulnerabilities.
The average household now has 24 connected devices, up from 22 last year.
Researchers found that 90.1% of detected attack activity involved reconnaissance, as automated tools scanned networks for vulnerable devices. Smart TVs accounted for 22.7% of vulnerability observations, followed by smart plugs (22.4%) and network-attached storage (22%).
The report also found that 99.97% of observed device vulnerabilities involved publicly documented CVEs.
Researchers warned that compromised IoT devices can serve as proxies for malicious traffic, collect sensitive information or provide attackers with access to other devices on home networks.
Denis Calderone, Principal / CTO, Suzu Labs:
“I like how the Bitdefender report reframes devices as proxies, sensors, and footholds, and not just targets. The old question was whether your smart TV could get hacked. The better question is what an attacker can do with the trust, bandwidth, and sensors attached to it. Your television is always on, always connected, and holds a trusted residential IP address, that helps to support an underground economy that is increasingly renting out residential infrastructure for a fee.
“The enterprise CISO has to rethink the network perimeter now. When employees work from home, corporate devices and traffic are now on the same network as the smart plug that no one has, or ever will, patch and a TV that’s already in the business of watching you. Automatic content recognition software samples what you watch and feeds it to advertisers, and researchers this year found proxy SDKs bundled into free TV apps that rent out your home IP address to third parties. The average home now has 24 connected devices, most with little device update support, if any. Smart TVs alone accounted for 270 million vulnerability observations in this report.
“If you’re reading this, the prescription is straightforward enough. Update your router firmware, change default admin credentials, turn off UPnP, enable whatever built-in security features your edge device offers, and put IoT devices on a guest network. But let’s be honest. Most home users are never going to do any of that. They’re not reading cybersecurity trade press, and they’re not logging into a router admin panel on a Saturday afternoon. The burden has to shift to two places. First, the ISPs. They manage the edge device in most deployments, and they should be shipping routers with security enabled by default, auto-updating firmware, and alerting customers when a device on their network starts behaving like a proxy node. Second, enterprise security training. This is a threat that many users and CISOs have not yet aligned on, and if your awareness program doesn’t cover home network hygiene for remote workers, you’re leaving the perimeter undefended. The consumer shouldn’t have to be the security operations center for their own house, but right now nobody else is doing it for them.”
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John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security:
“This article looks at the attack surface for home IoT devices. I really feel like we need a similar study for small to medium sized businesses. I think we’d see much the same spread of vulnerabilities across those devices.
“One thing that concerns me is the immense variety of IP cameras and security systems in these businesses. They get installed, almost become part of the building, and then they’re there forever.
“This is definitely eye opening. But I think the broader context matters. Home IoT is just one slice of the problem, and I suspect a similar study of business devices would tell a very familiar story.”
I am getting ready to do an inventory of all my smart devices and lock down anything and everything from speaking to the outside world unless they have a pressing need to do so.
NETGEAR expands investment in multifamily managed WiFi with two industry veterans
Posted in Commentary with tags Netgear on November 13, 2026 by itnerdNETGEAR, Inc. today announced two leadership appointments as it expands its investment in multifamily managed WiFi market. Azif Abdul Salam joins as Senior Director, Solutions Architecture, and Yancey Johnson joins as Vertical Account Director, strengthening NETGEAR Enterprise’s technical and commercial support for managed service providers (MSPs) serving apartment owners and operators.
Reliable, property-wide WiFi is an increasingly important amenity for renters and an operational priority for property owners. Yet only 5% to 7% of U.S. rental communities offer it today, while 81% of renters say they want it, according to research from Maravedis. Delivering it requires networks that provide private resident connectivity and can be deployed and managed efficiently across entire property portfolios.
MSPs play a central role in designing, deploying and operating these networks for property owners. They need technology that scales across properties, predictable costs per apartment and a vendor committed to supporting their business over time.
NETGEAR Enterprise’s multifamily networking portfolio includes multifamily network: WiFi 7 and WiFi 6 access points, WiFi 6 in-unit wall plates, multi-gig PoE switches and gateways, all managed from NETGEAR’s single-pane-of-glass management platform designed for the MDU market. Each apartment needs its own private network, and the platform gives every unit a separate one through multi-PSK and VLAN segmentation, so residents get the privacy of a home connection.
NETGEAR’s platform was built for MSPs. One account holds every customer property, new sites onboard in bulk with zero-touch provisioning, and licenses move between properties. If the platform is ever unreachable, the network keeps running and every device can still be managed locally, so residents stay online.
Azif Abdul Salam has more than 24 years of experience in wireless and wired networking. He held pre-sales and post-sales roles at Symbol, Motorola and Zebra, built the solutions quality assurance team at Ruckus Wireless, and led Solutions Engineering for North America at Cambium Networks, where he developed the company’s MDU capabilities.
Yancey Johnson spent 14 years as Regional Sales Manager, Southeast, at Cambium Networks. Before Cambium, he worked at wireless vendors Radwin and Firetide. At NETGEAR, he will lead account development and relationships with MSPs serving the multifamily market.
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