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yes, but why do they need to be exposed to the internet?

So you can control them over a network that you are almost always connected to, even if you are at home or mobile

you can keep them on a VPN and connect to that VPN yourself from anywhere, without exposing them to the possibility of anyone connecting to them directly from the internet.

You are just exposing the application to the internet with extra steps in between

If the application is properly secured (strong encryption, strong authentication) there is no point for the VPN

and if the application isn't configured correctly, the vpn/internal network might not be configured correctly either.

The extra steps are useful to have here. Assuming the application implemented in some ad-hoc firmware is secure enough when there trivial ways to add another more standardized layer of defense is simply negligence.

These are two different things. For example, it is possible that the fridges connect to a central, more secure MQTT endpoint to report telemetry and receive commands. They don't have to be discoverable on the internet. Also, not setting up a VPN, given the fact these vulns were known for so long is pure negligence.

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