The optimistic outlook is that the internet of things will be an enabling technology that will help make the people and physical systems of the world - healthcare, food production, transportation, energy consumption - smarter and more efficient.

The pessimistic outlook? Hackers will have something else to hack. And consumers accustomed to adding security tools to their computers and phones should expect to adopt similar precautions with internet-connected home appliances.

"If we want to put networked technologies into more and more things, we also have to find a way to make them safer," said Michael Walker, a program manager and computer security expert at the Pentagon’s advanced research arm. "It's a challenge for civilization."

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