How to Secure Your Smart Home Devices in 2026

Your Smart Home Is Also an Attack Surface

Smart home devices—connected speakers, cameras, doorbells, smart locks, thermostats, plugs, and TVs—have transformed how we interact with our homes. They have also fundamentally changed the security equation. Every device you add to your home network is a potential entry point for attackers. Unlike your laptop, which receives regular security updates and has a security suite installed, most smart home devices run minimal software that rarely gets updated, uses default credentials, and has no on-device security tools at all.

Researchers at universities and security firms have demonstrated that compromised smart home devices can be used to pivot onto your main network—gaining access to computers, phones, and NAS drives—or recruited into botnets that attack third-party targets. The good news: most smart home attacks exploit basic, preventable misconfigurations. This guide covers what actually matters.

Start with Your Router: The Gateway to Everything

Every smart home device connects through your router. Securing it is the highest-leverage single action you can take. Start here:

• Change the admin credentials immediately. Every router ships with a default admin username (usually "admin") and password (usually "admin", "password", or printed on a label). These defaults are publicly documented. Log into your router's admin panel (typically at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) and change both the admin username and password to something unique. Use the free password generator on this site to create a strong admin password and store it in a password manager like NordPass.
• Use WPA3 encryption. If your router was made in 2020 or later, it likely supports WPA3—the most current Wi-Fi encryption standard. If it only supports WPA2, that is still acceptable, but ensure you are not running the older WEP or WPA standards.
• Update the router firmware. Log into your router admin panel and check for firmware updates. Many routers have an auto-update option—enable it. Router firmware patches frequently address critical security vulnerabilities that have been publicly disclosed.
• Disable features you do not use. Remote admin access, UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), and WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) are common attack vectors. Disable them unless you have a specific need for them.

Create a Separate Network for IoT Devices

One of the most effective smart home security measures is also one of the least known: network segmentation. Most modern routers allow you to create a guest network or VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) that is isolated from your main network. Put all your smart home devices on this separate network.

The reason this matters: if an attacker compromises a smart speaker or camera on your main network, they can potentially see and attack every other device on that network—your laptop, phone, NAS, and other connected devices. If your smart home devices are on an isolated network, a compromised device cannot reach your main computers and phones.

Setup is usually straightforward: log into your router admin panel, find the guest network or VLAN settings, create a new network with a different SSID and password, and connect all smart home devices to it. Your computers and phones stay on the main, higher-security network.

Change Default Passwords on Every Device

Smart cameras, doorbells, smart plugs, and most other IoT devices ship with default credentials. In many cases these are universal across an entire product line—meaning if someone knows the brand of your camera, they know the default password. Before a device connects to your network, change its admin password to a unique one generated by your password manager.

This sounds obvious, but studies consistently show that a significant portion of internet-connected cameras are still running on factory-default credentials years after installation. Shodan—a search engine for internet-connected devices—indexes thousands of accessible home cameras, many of them streaming live video to anyone who searches.

Keep Devices Updated

Smart home device manufacturers push firmware updates that patch security vulnerabilities. Unlike computers, most smart home devices do not notify you of available updates—you have to check manually, or enable auto-update in the device's app. For each device:

• Open the manufacturer's app and look for a firmware update or software update option in settings.
• Enable automatic updates where available.
• Replace devices that have been discontinued by their manufacturer and are no longer receiving security patches—these are permanently vulnerable and represent an ongoing risk.

Devices more than 3-4 years old that are no longer receiving updates should be evaluated carefully. The security risk of keeping them on your network often outweighs the convenience.

Secure Your Smart Cameras and Doorbells Specifically

Cameras and video doorbells represent a higher-stakes risk than smart plugs or bulbs—compromised cameras expose your home's interior and exterior to remote viewers. Beyond the general steps above:

• Use two-factor authentication on your camera account. Most major camera platforms (Ring, Nest, Wyze, Arlo) support 2FA. Enable it. See our two-factor authentication guide for setup help.
• Review who has account access. Check your camera app's account settings for any devices or users you do not recognize.
• Use a strong, unique password for your camera account. This is separate from the device admin password—it is the account you use on the manufacturer's app or website.
• Disable features you do not use. If you do not use remote viewing, disable it. Fewer exposed attack surfaces mean fewer risks.

Protect Your Network Traffic with a VPN

While a home VPN setup primarily protects your traffic on external networks, it is worth noting that some advanced home users set up a VPN at the router level—routing all traffic, including from smart home devices, through an encrypted tunnel. This prevents your ISP from building a behavioral profile of your home's device activity.

For most users, the practical priority is protecting your own devices when away from home. NordVPN supports router-level installation and also has dedicated apps for computers and phones. When you access your smart home remotely—checking camera feeds, adjusting thermostats—doing so over a VPN adds an additional layer of protection against network interception.

NordVPN also includes a Threat Protection feature that blocks malicious domains and ads at the DNS level, which can prevent smart home devices from communicating with known malicious servers even if they are compromised.

Watch for Signs of a Compromised Device

Smart home devices are not always visibly compromised—attackers often want devices to continue functioning normally while using them for botnets or network reconnaissance in the background. Signs to watch for:

• Unusual spikes in network traffic, particularly late at night when no one is home
• Smart devices behaving unexpectedly—lights turning on, cameras panning, thermostats changing on their own
• New devices appearing in your router's connected-device list that you do not recognize
• Your internet connection slowing significantly during off-peak hours (a sign your router or devices may be part of a botnet)

If you suspect a device has been compromised, factory reset it, change its credentials and your Wi-Fi password, and update its firmware before reconnecting it. For guidance on what to do after any security incident, see our guide on what to do after a data breach.

Smart Home Security Checklist

• ✓ Change router admin username and password from factory defaults
• ✓ Update router firmware and enable auto-updates
• ✓ Use WPA3 (or WPA2) Wi-Fi encryption with a strong network password
• ✓ Create a separate IoT network (guest network or VLAN) for smart home devices
• ✓ Change default credentials on every smart home device
• ✓ Enable auto-updates on all devices; replace discontinued devices
• ✓ Enable 2FA on camera and doorbell accounts
• ✓ Disable unused features (remote admin, UPnP, WPS)
• ✓ Periodically review connected-device list for unknown devices

Recommended Tools for Smart Home Security

The recommended tools page has our full vetted list of security products.

• NordPass — Password manager for storing unique credentials for every device and account. Essential for managing the credential complexity of a smart home.
• NordVPN — VPN with router-level installation support and Threat Protection DNS filtering. Encrypts traffic from your smart home devices and protects you when accessing them remotely.
• Avast — Security suite that includes a home network scanner to detect vulnerable and misconfigured devices on your network.