MKE Cybersecurity Summit focuses on hacking risk for those who work from home

MILWAUKEE -- Cyber attackers are constantly coming up with new ways to steal your information. Business leaders across the area teamed up on Monday, Oct. 28 to try and stay one step ahead.

Walter Schilling

The ability to adjust your thermostat through an app can be convenient, but for a hacker -- each device connected to the internet is a door to your network, and if you work from home -- your employer's network as well.

"By having these things on the network now, that actually opens up businesses to potential for malicious activity to occur," said Walter Schilling, MSOE professor of software engineering.

Schilling sat on the panel at the second annual MKE Cybersecurity Summit. New issues presented by working from home was one of the topics discussed.

MKE Cybersecurity Summit

The idea behind the summit was, it's better for companies to work together.

Tina Chang

"Nobody wants to admit that they've been hacked or they've been taken for money with ransomware," said Tina Chang, SysLogic CEO. "It's sometimes difficult to share those stories, and if you're not sharing those stories, it's hard to learn from each other."

One thing companies like Honeywell are working on is building products secure from the start.

"Quite frankly, the businesses need to do this to ensure that they're going to have a long-term survival in their industries," said Paul Popowski, global product security operations leader, Honeywell.

MKE Cybersecurity Summit

That way, if the camera for your home is built secure from the start -- businesses can be protected as well.

SysLogic officials said it's important for consumers to ask questions about the products they are buying.