It started out innocently enough. You got a broadband connection and a router, you set up Wi-Fi, and now you can get your laptop online with no fuss. Over time, your family added a tablet and a smartphone or two, maybe an eReader, and everything connected easily.
If it had ended there, life would be so simple. But it didn't, did it?
You added a network-enabled printer here, an Alexa there. Actually, you added three Alexas. Then you added a smart thermostat and a few smart TVs. With all the voice interfaces in place, it seemed like a great idea to add smart light bulbs. Let's add ten of them.
"Why not set up the garage door to open via Siri?," you thought. And wouldn't it be great to monitor who's at the door with a smart doorbell? You added a smart lock, so you could let the dog walker in when you're not at home.
Rise of the Machines
There comes a time when you realize you're wildly outnumbered by your Internet-connected devices and smartphones. Trend Micro says that its Home Network Security customers have an average of 43 devices. Our informal poll of editors here found that most of us have 50 or 60 devices, especially when you include all those smart light bulbs.

Unfortunately, a smart home is also a vulnerable home. If someone gained access to your thermostat in the middle of winter, they could dial down the temperature low enough to freeze pipes. Or they could hack your smart lock and open your front door. They could crank the volume up on a smart speaker and wake you in the middle of the night.
Some smart devices are astonishingly dumb when it comes to security. Smart homes can host devices from a wide range of vendors, not all of which are diligent about issuing security updates. Hackers have come to know what devices are vulnerable, and they use them to get a foothold in home networks.

You might not think you're worthy of some anonymous hacker's attention, but your network has value. A clever criminal can leverage network access and steal private information. Vulnerable devices may be used as nodes for botnet attacks, as well. At the very least, malicious software can hog your bandwidth and slow down your network.
Home Network Security
Fortunately, Trend Micro's Home Network Security (HNS) station can help you manage and control your network. And you don't have to be an IT pro or networking geek to benefit from its capabilities.
Hooking it up is simple. Connect the box (which is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand) to wall power. Then connect an Ethernet cable to the HNS box and your router. That's it. Everything else is managed in an easy-to-understand app.
There are three main areas where HNS helps: device management, network security, and parental control. We'll discuss the first two in this article. In a future article, we'll take a deeper dive into parental control and family management.
How robust are your devices?
The idea that you have to update the software on your light bulbs may have been funny a decade ago, but it's quite serious now. Do you know how to update your smart devices? Are the passwords all secure? Unless you take the time to audit each device, do a bunch of Googling, and update everything manually, you just don't know.

HNS solves this challenge. It identifies and diagnoses all the devices on your network. Connecting to Trend Micro's vast database of vulnerability and threat issues, HNS checks and validates every device for weak passwords, compromised firmware, or other vulnerabilities. Using the app, you can choose to isolate compromised devices until you can update or replace them. New features will even block your router from external access and keep it safe from compromise.
If a device starts to behave differently from its normal pattern of use, HNS's Smart Alert feature will let you know.
HNS also helps you manage your broadband usage. With more families working and learning from home, it's important to know whether any devices - even legitimately - are using disproportionate amounts of download or upload bandwidth. If you're trying to have a bunch of Zoom sessions at once, HNS can tell you if another computer is sending a big backup to the cloud at the same time - and help you stop or postpone it.
The HNS app provides all these functions with simple taps and very clear, plain-English instructions.
Internet security
Let's move on to Internet security. Threats come from all over, even websites you trust. Hackers sometimes get their hooks into well-respected websites and install code that pushes malware down to the computer of anyone who accesses that site.

With HNS, however, you're protected. Trend Micro maintains databases of compromised websites as the first line of defense, and it continuously watches patterns of network behavior 24/7/365. If any transmission deviates from normal behavior, it's blocked. Even if a once-trusted website has been compromised, your network and devices won't be.
Here's something to keep in mind as you consider this product. Anti-malware technology comprises the true DNA of Trend Micro. It was founded more than three decades ago as an antivirus company.
Trend Micro has an enormous base of institutional knowledge when it comes to fighting malware, enterprise-level AI that keeps ahead of it, and an ever growing database of patterns and practices that identify malware strains. HNS brings all that security strength to bear to help you defend against malicious websites, corrupted downloads, and intrusions.
To learn more about Home Network Security from Trend Micro, please click here.