The Federal Trade Commission has offered to award up to $25,000 to potential partners that can provide applications or tools designed to protect smart home devices against hacking, Nextgov reported Tuesday.
Joseph Marks writes FTC seeks a cloud-based application that checks for security updates or a physical device that can assess Internet of Things device security.
“A dashboard or other user interface might inform the consumer about which devices were up-to-date already, those that had unpatched software vulnerabilities and even those that the manufacturer no longer supported,” FTC said in a notice posted Wednesday on the Federal Register.
The responses should look to mitigate the vulnerabilities of out-of-date IoT software and address potential dangers such as forced factory default updates or weak passwords, the report said.
Nextgov noted that interested parties have until May 22 to submit responses.
Winners, including honorable mention winners that will each receive $3,000, will be announced in July.
