With great automation comes great responsibility. You may love your smart thermostat and door lock, but as long as they’re on the open network, they’re targets for all manner of digital attacks. And because the devices are smaller and simpler, they don’t have nearly the protection of your laptop or phone.

It’s not all bad news. Your thermostat doesn’t make a very attractive target to most hackers. (Unlike your phone or computer, there isn’t much monetizable information on it.) The most likely threat is someone trying to enlist it in a Mirai-style botnet — which would be bad, but it would only cost you whatever extra power the device ended up burning.