“Botnets are
already a major security concern and the emergence of thingbots may make the
situation much worse. Many of these devices are poorly protected at best and
consumers have virtually no way to detect or fix infections when they do occur.
Enterprises may find distributed attacks increasing as more and more of these
devices come online and attackers find additional ways to exploit them”
Proofpoint's David Knight in comment to CNWT Australia
on the First documented Botnet attack involving a web connected Refrigerator
Yes rasta, I
knew this Internet of Things phenomenon with connected Appliances was a bad
idea!! My worst fears as documented in my Geezam
blog article entitled “The
Internet of Things – Our AI’s State of Connectedness” has been
realized; my Refridgerator has apparently been zombified and is out to get me.
Gentle reader,
it’s now possible to hack Home appliances that are connected to the Internet
and use them in DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service), botnet attacks or in this
case, sending spam as noted in the article “Fridge
caught sending spam emails in botnet attack”, published January 20, 2014 By
Michelle Starr, CNET News.
Get this; some
of these devices included routers, multimedia centres, televisions and …..wait
for it….at least one refrigerator, exactly as i’d predicted in my Geezam blog article entitled “The
Internet of Things – Our AI’s State of Connectedness”. People, am I
a prophet or what!
No surprise here
as far as I’m concerned though. Half of the time when I’m online, I’m probably
speaking to a bot, a semi-autonomous program that can be programmed to do great
stuff or steal your Credit Card info as pointed out in my Geezam blog article entitled “61%
of all Traffic on the Internet is generated by bots”.
And most devices
have built in Hard-Drives, even Photocopiers. This makes them potentially
dangerous sitting time bombs that are easily exploitable for hacks of this
nature. Worse, many retain the data they’ve collected on you, storing gigabytes
of personal information on their activities.
Unscrupulous Data
Mining bots can access these unprotected devices with very weak passwords and
encryption connected via the “Internet of Things” to recover and get access to
Credit Cards, Internal company secrets and other potentially damaging information
Refridgerator spambot is Media Sensationalism – Any ‘Net
connect Device with a Hard-Drive is hackable
Good to note
this hack is fairly routine and run-of-the-mill; Hacker uses a bot and infects
the Host machine, that being the Refridgerator or whatever device is connected
to the Internet. Then he sends instructions to the machine to send out emails
or whatever other tasks he wants it to do.
The hack, which
occurred between December 23, 2013 and January 6, 2014 according to Security
Expert Proofpoint as noted in the article “For
The First Time, Hackers Have Used A Refrigerator To Attack Businesses”, published
JAN. 16, 2014, 1:36 PM by JULIE BORT, Business
Insider, indicates some interesting bits of info that reminds me of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
(2003):
1.
100,000 Internet connected devices were involved in the
attack
2.
750,000 spam emails were sent
3.
100,000 emails at a time were sent thrice daily
4.
10 emails from a single device at a time
Effectively as
far as he’s concerned, the refrigerators, Microwave or any other Appliance that
are connected to the Internet are just another set of unprotected computer that
the hacker can use to host and run his software program to do what he wants.
Really and truly
it’s the Media and Proofpoint's that’s hyping this, as this may have been
happening ALL along as I’d warned in my Geezam
blog article entitled “NFC and M2M – Cashless Society and the
Internet of Things” and “Google
and AI - The Matrix and Terminator Rise of the Machines”.
Intel developing Defense against the
Dark Arts – All-Electric Vehicles may be the next targets
Still,
hopefully companies may be taking a leaf from Intel’s playbook and start embedding
anti-virus software into Processors as noted in my blog article
entitled “Intel
and LightPeak - Race towards the Sun”.
This
as the next target’s may not be so amusing and may in fact be All-Electric
Vehicles, most of which have a fully-functional onboard computer with a VERY
large hard-drive, a scenario that Intel is preparing for as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Intel’s
McAfee researches Virus attacks on All-Electric Vehicles as AI’s Project SARTRE
hits the road”.
As for me, I’ll be round back…..charging up my EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapon and sharpening my cutlass, should the Microwave, Refridgerator and Toaster Oven decided to off me in the night!
As for me, I’ll be round back…..charging up my EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapon and sharpening my cutlass, should the Microwave, Refridgerator and Toaster Oven decided to off me in the night!
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