How Congress Can Fix 'Internet of Things' Security

Last week, hackers launched the largest distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks in history against the Domain Name System (DNS) service provider Dyn, taking offline many of its high-profile customers, including PayPal, Twitter, Reddit, Amazon and Netflix. This attack had a wide spread impact affecting connected devices making up the “Internet of Things.” In the wake of this event, many policymakers are left wondering what, if anything, they can do to prevent future attacks and how they can make the burgeoning Internet of Things more secure. Daniel Castro writes in The Hill that a relatively simple step that Congress could take to jump-start cybersecurity in the fledgling Internet of Things is to require companies to publish a security policy.