‘Reaper’ is the new scare. But we’re not lost. We all could do something about it. As well as consumers and especially as manufacturers of IoT devices.
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‘Reaper’ is the new scare. But we’re not lost. We all could do something about it. As well as consumers and especially as manufacturers of IoT devices.
Are inaudible Voice Commands, so called “Dolphin Attacks”, a serious threat for voice controlled smart devices? A team of Chinese researchers published a paper explaining how they used ultrasonic commands, inaudible for the human ear, to take over the control of popular devices such as Amazon Alexa, Google Now or Siri from Apple.
In a recent tweet, researcher Ankit Anubhav, specialized in IoT security, drew attention on a list circling the internet, containing thousands of IP addresses of IoT devices including their login data. Many of the devices are still accessible via Telnet, some of them already have been taken over by botnets. What baffles is that despite the many incidents related to poorly secured IoT devices and constant warnings from security professionals, most of the logins couldn’t been easier to guess: When “admin:admin” or “root:123456” grants access to a device, calling it “hacking” to take control already sounds like an insult. My plea: Think of security first, when you think of the IoT!
A serious security issue relating fully automated car washes made the headlines this week: Researches found a way to manipulate internet-connected drive-through car washes that could physically attack vehicles and their passengers. The problem: configuration of the machines could be changed online. A decentralized system could have avoided that.
The Internet of Things might not grow as quickly as predicted by some market researchers and analysts. In the long term, however, our lives will depend increasingly on connected technologies. The result of this development is that we will be more vulnerable. Despite this, the issue of security is often treated with negligence. But whoever wants to take the easy way out, pushes the residual rest on the “human factor”. We have to think further.
Maybe the Internet of Things is not spreading as fast as predicted by some, but in the long run it will change our world significantly. As more IoT devices enter the market, security will become increasingly important.
