Top Tips on Managing, Protecting & When To Share Your Account Password.

Smart home “hacks” are frightening. You may have seen the viral news stories. A family’s security camera was hijacked to play fake warnings about a nuclear attack. A stalker harassed his ex-partner by changing her lock codes and turning her lights on and off.

How do these attacks happen? Typically, the intruder doesn’t target the smart home technology company. He targets the homeowner’s account instead, taking advantage of a security lapse—a weak or compromised password, for example—to log in to their account or mobile app.

The good news is that you can protect your account from an intruder by taking some simple measures. Smartzone offers several smart safeguards for you to employ, and we are always on hand to offer help and expertise.

Here’s how to take action and keep your Smartzone account better protected.

UPDATE AND IMPROVE YOUR PASSWORD

A weak or re-used password is the digital equivalent of a door key tucked under the mat. It’s how most hacks and data breaches happen. Create a stronger password for your account by following these rules:

AVOID THE OBVIOUS: Dogs are for home security, not password security. Don’t use your pet’s name, or favorite team, or anything else that’s easy to guess. Pick a password or phrase that’s memorable—but only to you.
MAKE IT UNIQUE: Add capital letters, numbers and symbols to make your password harder to crack.
KEEP IT UNIQUE: Don’t use your Smartzone password anywhere else. Using the same password across multiple sites means that a single data breach—anywhere—will compromise all of your accounts. For safety, always keep a separate password for Smartzone powered Alarm.com.

Does your current password measure up? Log into Alarm.com, or go to the Login Information tab in your Smartzone/Alarm.com app, and change it now. We’ll wait!

NEVER SHARE YOUR LOGIN WITH OTHER USERS

Letting other people log into your Smartzone account with your credentials is a security risk. It makes it harder for you to track who’s logging in, and you could even lose control of your account settings.

When you give a new user access to your account, always give them their own login. It’s easy to do from your web dashboard (go to Users, then select Manage Logins). There’s no extra charge, and you can control exactly what each user can see and do within your account.

We provide a range of pre-set user permission levels, from “Read Only” to “Full Control”, to make this part easy—or you can customize each user’s permissions if you prefer.

DON’T GIVE ACCOUNT ACCESS WHEN A USER CODE WILL DO

If a person only needs physical access to your home, don’t give them an account login. Give them a User Code instead.

Let’s say you hire a dog-walker to visit your house on weekdays. A numerical User Code lets them unlock the door and disarm your alarm. You can restrict the code to work on weekdays only, and have it expire on a given date. You can even get an alert or video clip when they use it.

As any security expert will tell you: give people the access they need, and no more. In most cases, a User Code will take care of it.

SET UP REAL TIME ACTIVITY ALERTS FOR AWARENESS

Smartzone’s smartphone alerts can help you protect your account as well as your home.

To receive an alert when someone accesses your account, or tries to, set up a Successful Login or Unsuccessful Login notification. If you receive either alert unexpectedly, you’ll know to investigate and take action if necessary.

You’ll find these notifications in the System Event category of your notification options.

Please note: Unsuccessful Login alerts can be triggered when other Alarm.com users mistype a username that’s similar to your own. To reduce the likelihood of this happening, ensure that your username is distinctive and different. You’ll find it in the Login Information tab of your Smartzone/Alarm.com app.

LOST YOUR PHONE? SUSPECT A BREACH? DO THIS

If you think an intruder has access to your account, or you lose your phone with the Smartzone/Alarm.com app on it, here’s what to do.

Log into your Alarm.com Web Dashboard and go to Settings.
Go to the Devices tab, then select Lost Device.
Submit a “Disable Automatic Login” command to log every user out of your account and prevent any device from logging back in automatically.
Change your password immediately.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR ACCOUNT SECURITY?

If you’re in danger because someone has accessed your Smartzone powered Alarm.com account, contact Smartzone immediately on 021 4966248. We will help you restore control, and advise you on what to do.

If you don’t have Smartzone and need a smarter home security system, get in touch with Smartzone today and request a Free Virtual Home Assessment and Quotation.