A lawsuit was filed against D-Link Corp by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, with its main reason stating that the international company was unable to ensure the protection and security of its routers and cameras.
The FTC filed such charges as a means of enhancing the security and safety of all devices that can be linked through the Internet; these include web cameras, routers, video records, among many other consumer electronics. On the other hand, D-Link denies such claims.
“D-Link denies the allegations outlined in the complaint and is taking steps to defend the action,” the manufacturer said in a statement. “The security of our products and protection of our customers private data is always our top priority.”
Issues regarding the security of internet-linked equipment have been on the rise since 2016 following hackers’ incidents of using a wide range of consumer electronics devices, such as routers and webcams, to bring on consecutive attacks that cut off the access to several of the biggest websites in the world.
According to experts, such attacks can be attributed to sloppy security among numerous Internet-linked gadgets from various manufacturers. As such, the tech industry is being urged to take the necessary measures in protecting and securing their electronics. They should also be able to get rid of the weaknesses in their devices, including the availability of default passwords which offer hackers a remote access to such equipment.
As pointed out by Flashpoint security research director Allison Nixon, the FTC’s step towards filing charges against device manufacturers are of great importance.
“I think vendors are going to take it seriously,” Nixon said. “The IoT (Internet of Things) world needs to shape up quickly because this is a big problem.”
As FTC sues D-Link, it accuses the latter of overlooking the protection of their equipment “from widely known and reasonably foreseeable risks of unauthorized access.”
The FTC is requesting for the U.S District Court for California’s Northern District to order D-Link to take measures in enhancing security practices as well as to pay up for legal costs.
