Back in the 1990s when businesses started going online they frequently didn’t realize that their new networking gear came with simple default passwords like “admin”. So a whole generation of early hackers simply scanned the web for companies that had inadvertently exposed themselves in this way, siphoning off (probably, no one really knows) billions of dollars and causing various other kinds of mischief.

Now that process is repeating with the Internet of things (IoT). As pretty much every device in homes and businesses is imbued with sensors and connected to internal networks and/or the broader Web, hackers are exploiting the many resulting vulnerabilities.

But this time around it’s personal, as formerly innocuous things like TVs, phones and thermostats gain cameras and microphones, creating all kinds of privacy issues – some of which are potentially (and catastrophically) financial. Here’s a sampling of what appeared on the subject in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

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