Smart home

Symantec, BitDefender and Intel unveiled devices that scrutinise data as it flows across home networks.

The companies say routers with built-in defences will be essential as homes are filled with net-connected gadgets.

The routers also come with parental control features that help manage how much time children spend online and what they see.

Home invasion

"You will have to buy a security solution for your internet-of-things," said Alex Balan, chief security researcher at BitDefender.

If so, you could be unwittingly turning your internet-connected "smart" home into a weapon of web destruction.

That's the unsettling conclusion to be drawn from the recent web attacks that made use of a botnet army of compromised connected devices, from webcams to printers, to knock out a number of popular websites.

The smart home, it seems, is pretty dumb when it comes to security.