Bitdefender and NETGEAR IoT report: home devices average 24, reconnaissance dominates attacks

Bitdefender and NETGEAR released the 2026 IoT Security Landscape Report, analyzing 5.4 billion security events from 10.4 million smart homes. The average household now has 24 connected devices, up from 22. Reconnaissance made up 90.1% of detected attack activity. Smart TVs led vulnerability observations at 270.3 million. Smart TVs, smart plugs, and network-attached storage account for 67.1% of vulnerability observations. 99.97% of observed vulnerabilities are publicly known CVEs. The report highlights the need for router-level protection, a market served by NETGEAR Armor powered by Bitdefender.