IoT news of the week for June 25, 2021

Honeywell’s latest report finds USB drives are an IIoT security weak spot: Threats capable of propagating over USB, or exploiting USB media for initial infection, rose from 19% in 2019 to just over 37% in 2020, according to a report from Honeywell. The company, which sells a product to secure USB drives that are brought into a factory setting, gathered the data based on an analysis of threats that were found on USB drives submitted to its equipment. Trojans comprised 76% of the malware detected, while the number of threats that were self-replicating had gone up; meanwhile, 52% of them were able to provide remote access or remote control. To learn more, check out the report. (Honeywell) — Stacey Higginbotham

Hitachi Vantara acquires Io-Tahoe for data management: Hitachi Vantara has acquired Io-Tahoe, a four-year-old subsidiary of the UK energy company Centrica. Io-Tahoe, which provides a data management platform, will be folded into the Lumada DataOps Suite. This is Hitachi’s third acquisition in the past 15 months, as it doubles down on digital transformations. Its other acquisitions were of Global Logic, in March, for $9.6 billion, and the smaller Waterline, a provider of intelligent data cataloging solutions, back in March 2020. (Hitachi Vantara) — Stacey Higginbotham

Even more data on the chip shortage: The chip shortage is a slow-moving economic train wreck. Each week we get another story estimating how much longer it’s going to be with us (at last check, about 18 months to two years) along with all the various ways it’s causing companies to struggle. This week’s story focuses on how the overall demand for older generations of chips is growing across more industries as companies abandon plans to include high-end features in their upcoming products thanks to the shortage. However, as everyone tries to buy the older chips, they are also seeing a tighter supply. It’s a mess. (The Verge) — Stacey Higginbotham

Zephyr OS has a fuzzy Bluetooth flaw: We’ve mentioned Zephyr OS a few times over the past few months, noting that it’s a very solid RTOS, or real-time operating system, for embedded devices. Unfortunately, not even Zephyr is immune to security flaws. This week, published research shows a Bluetooth security issue that will require patching. That in itself isn’t super interesting because we hear about wireless protocol flaws often — too often, to be honest. More interesting is the method used to find the flaw. It’s called “fuzzing of the Bluetooth Low Energy Link Layer” and is described in the master’s thesis of Matias Karhumaa, a researcher at the Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Centre. You’ll want to read about this fuzziness to understand the unique testing methodology (The Register) — Kevin C. Tofel

Want a Peloton on your wrist? This week, reports surfaced that Peloton is getting into the wearables market, which is a bit surprising. Apparently the company is working on an arm-based heart-rate monitor, for starters. This, of course, would connect to a Peloton stationary bike or treadmill and provide workout data. Which sounds good in theory, and far be it from me to know if Peloton owners are willing to drop more money on a new wearable. But I don’t think this is a smart move for the company when there are a plethora of wearables that can do this already. And I’m betting many people who spent a few grand on exercise equipment likely already have one of those wearables, such as the Apple Watch or a high-end fitness tracker from Garmin. (Bloomberg) — Kevin C. Tofel

The new Samsung SmartThings app looks awfully familiar: There’s good news for all you Samsung SmartThings users: You’ve got a software update ready and waiting for you. And once you install that software update, you’ll see a brand-new user interface to manage your connected home devices. I installed it this week for the few SmartThings devices I have left, but it didn’t take long before I got the feeling I’d seen it before. Then it hit me—it looks quite a bit like the Apple Home app. Generally speaking, I don’t care which company “borrows” from others, and this is no exception. But you’d think that with all of the different smart home ecosystems out there we’d have more uniqueness and innovation, no? (The Verge) — Kevin C. Tofel

By 2027, every vehicle may have smart tires: I haven’t been following the connected tire market for some time, and last I checked, smart tires were a super niche product whose development was still in progress. Apparently, that progress has moved quickly. Goodyear is aiming for all of its tires to have smarts within six years. Using a wireless sensor the size of a quarter, they will monitor road temperature, tire pressure, traction, and vehicle acceleration. All that data will be analyzed to predict a tire issue in advance, helping to avoid blowouts and other incidents that can often be fatal. Best of all is the expected cost of $96 per tire, which doesn’t sound all that expensive for the priceless piece of mind a smart tire can provide. (Seattle Times) — Kevin C. Tofel

Protect your valuables and yourself with a smart safe: Nosing around on Kickstarter this week I saw an interesting connected product. It’s not just a safe; it’s a smart safe. Aside from fairly typical fingerprint and passcode options to open it, the safe can use Wi-Fi to notify friends or contacts that you’re in danger at the touch of a button. It’s called “kidnap mode,” and would presumably be used when someone forces you to open the safe. You can also enable a vibration mode to have the safe notify you when it detects that it’s been tampered with or moved. Backing starts at $119, if you’re interested. (Kickstarter) — Kevin C. Tofel