Nearly three-quarters of all Internet of Things (IoT) devices are susceptible to getting hacked or compromised, according to a recent study.

The study by Hewlett-Packard (HP), examined 10 common smart devices, including thermostats, smart TVs and webcams. Each device had approximately 25 vulnerabilities, the study claimed.

Many of the vulnerabilities had to do with a lack of password strength and weak protection software. Eight out of 10 devices failed to require passwords strong enough to be useful, and the same amount put users at risk of having their personal information intercepted via cloud services.

"Late last year, we were hearing a lot about Internet of Things, and a bit about IoT security, but had not seen anything that focused on the complete picture of IoT security," a statement from HP read. "So, we decided to start the OWASP [Open Web Application Security Project] Internet of Things Top 10 Project, which aims to educate on the main facets of Internet of Things security that people should be concerned with."

Information technology research firm Garner predicts there will be 26 billion individual Internet of Things objects in the world by the year 2020. In 2009, there were only about nine million of these devices sold.

"The fact is, that today, many categories of connected things in 2020 don't yet exist," Gartner research director Peter Middleton said in a statement. "As product designers dream up ways to exploit the inherent connectivity that will be offered in intelligent products, we expect the variety of devices offered to explode."

Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/08/02/internet-of-things-hacking-study/

 http://fortifyprotect.com/HP_IoT_Research_Study.pdf