At the same time, IoT devices are being sold by companies who think that a 10 years support cycle is "a long time" and who frequently will drop support for devices when new models are released. The same companies often have terrible models for customer support.
I was at a presentation of Microsofts Azure Sphere OS. The presenter proudly proclaimed that they would have 10 year support cycle. Apparently I was the only one in the audience who felt that 10 years is at least 5 years short of what is needed.
I wish I were a hacker capable of such feats.
Or constantly toggling things that require power in sync, which would throw off the power grid system in some way.
Or making food rot in fridges.
Or randomly flashing lights on during night, interrupting people sleep.
There are many ways that some of those things can be statistically dangerous or life threatening at scale, either directly or by consequence.
If used by government actors, I imagine they'd use it every opportunity they could.
Separately, I worry about smart devices that could be used to cause electrical fires, leaks, etc at scale. Triggering many devices in a target area to do some activity that sparks even small fires allows you a decent chance of creating large fires fairly easily without a single troop hitting the ground or firing a single bullet. With the impact we saw from the Camp Fire, the government's current... issues... Etc., that's terrifying.
</tinfoilhat>
Mark my words, eventually the world is going to see some sort of Fukushima scale internet of shit disaster caused by poor security/architecture. I'm not sure what form it will take, maybe mass pwnage of a device as commonplace as Amazon echo or Google home, but it will be bad.