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Richard "Dick" Brooks
Richard "Dick" Brooks
Expert Member
Top Contributor

White House to unveil ambitious cybersecurity labeling effort modeled after Energy Star

The article linked below under Read More describing government efforts is a good start at helping consumers identify safe IoT products, but much more is needed to provide software consumers with visibility into the trustworthiness of apps in app stores, which are collectively the largest distributor of consumer commercial software on the planet. Apps within app stores are commonly used by hackers to carry out their nefarious acts. More must be done to help consumers identify risky app's in app stores, ASAP to stop the spread of ransomware, snooping apps and other bad actors found across all app stores.

The proposed labeling program described in this article needs to cover more than just new devices, i.e. cameras and routers. Many existing "deployed" devices in the field have known vulnerabilities, back doors and other means that hackers use to exploit these devices. Consumer also need to know the status of these installed devices as well, because that is where the risk lies in their environments. Please ask your government representatives to advocate for more broad consumer software labeling standards for existing devices, new devices and, especially app's within app stores where much of the software used by these devices is distributed.