A week ago, hackers launched an unprecedentedly large attack on the internet, and they were able to do it because they had thousands of internet-connected smart devices in their army, gadgets like webcams and DVRs. It's absurdly easy to hack many of these sorts of gadgets, and a new little demonstration from The Atlantic shows just how fast it happens.

As an experiment, The Atlantic set up a fake internet toaster, a server designed to look as if it were an internet-connected appliance and an easy target for attack. It was probed within its first hour of existence, and the attacks are continuing to this very minute, as documented by The Atlantic's post, which updates in real time.

Smart devices—be they toasters, webcams, or refrigerators—are valuable to hackers because many hackers' source of power doesn't come from what the devices under their control can do, but how many of them there are. When using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, you just have to clobber your target with as much traffic as possible, a toaster or a laptop, it doesn't matter where it is coming from.

The only real solution to this problem is to avoid smart devices, or make them harder to hack. In some case, that can mean that you should change the admin password on your new fridge, but in other cases its up to manufacturers. Some webcams used in last week's attack had theirpasswords was hardcoded into their firmware, requiring a recall to fix.

So next time you find yourself considering a smart device over its dumb alternative, just take a moment to think whether you really need to add this bit of potential firepower to the internet, and how you can keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

Source: The Atlantic

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