Shodan is a database of billions of publicly available IP addresses, and it’s used by security experts to analyze network security. If you’re terrified to discover that your internet-connected devices could be exposed to absolutely anyone, here are some tips to keep your network as secure as possible:
www.shodan.io
- Limit your devices to local-only connections. Many internet of things (IoT) devices don’t need to go online and they can be set to only share information with other devices on your home or business network.
- Change your login details. Many IoT devices, routers, and other web-facing tools ship with generic passwords that can be easily cracked. Get a good password manager like Dashlane or 1Password and generate complex, unique passwords for all of the devices on your network.
- Minimize service banner information. Many devices share a dangerous amount of information in their web-facing service banners. You can easily remove unnecessary information from your banners and limit the amount of information available to IP-trawlers like Shodan.
- Use a network firewall. A properly configured firewall can block unauthorized users from being able to access any of the devices located in your network. If you don’t currently have a firewall, I’d recommend the one that comes with Norton 360.
- Use Shodan. Shodan’s free membership can give you some information, but the affordable membership is more helpful — it grants access to on-demand scanning, which can tell you exactly what information Shodan gets from a specific IP address.
Shodan
Search engine of Internet-connected devices. Create a free account to get started.
www.shodan.io
