Meet “Dojo”, the Cyber security guard for Smart homes

Dojo-Labs on Thursday introduced Dojo, a device that plugs into the router of a home network and acts as a watchdog to ensure that everything connected to the network is operating on its best behavior.

The device brings some of the advanced technologies used to protect corporate networks to the home. It can prevent attacks and detect intrusions by observing how a device behaves on the network. Moreover, the longer it's connected to a network, the smarter it gets about how that network works, the company said."That gives their normal behavior a signature," said Dojo-Labs CEO Yossi Atias. "Any deviation from that usually indicates some software vulnerability."

Dojo's job is made easier by the single-purpose nature of devices that make up the Internet of Things and the smart home. Baby monitors, webcams and other IoT devices essentially do one thing.

Dojo has both a hardware and mobile component.

The hardware is a dock with a "pebble." The dock connects to the router. The pebble can be carried around and is used to check on network activity. Its light rings turn orange when Dojo encounters a problem that it is solving automatically. If the rings turn red, intervention is needed."The pebble gives a nontechie consumer an overall view of their home security just in the blink of an eye," said Atias.

The mobile component is an app that receives notifications from Dojo. It allows users to permit or block certain activity on their networks, as well as alert them of potential cyber threats to the nets.

Dojo acts as a security hub for all the connected devices in the home.

"Rather than installing software on every individual device, which would be a nightmare for anybody to keep up, it watches the behavior of the devices and then lets you know if any are performing badly so you can take them offline," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.