By LILY HAY NEWMAN – Internet-connected gadgets like light bulbs and fitness trackers are notorious for poor security. That’s partly because they’re often made cheaply and with haste, which leads to careless mistakes and outsourcing of problematic parts. But it’s also partly due to the lack of computing power in the first place; it’s not so easy to encrypt all that data with limited resources. Or at least that’s how the conventional wisdom goes.

But real-world data suggests that many of those ubiquitous tiny gadgets can run versions of traditional, time-tested encryption schemes. A team from the Swiss IoT encryption firm Teserakt argues that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when the real solution is simply holding IoT manufacturers to higher standards. They made their case at a National Institute of Standards and Technology conference in Maryland this month focused on developing “lightweight” cryptography for embedded devices.

But traditional cryptography, particularly the stalwart Advanced Encryption Standard, often works just fine in IoT devices, says Antony Vennard, Teserakt’s chief engineer. The researchers have even observed a number of situations where security-conscious manufactures found ways to incorporate it, like in the embedded systems of cars. And other, independent studies have had similar findings. Read On: