Hackers can use holes in ‘Internet of Things’

It could be a merry holiday season for hackers, with millions of new and potentially vulnerable Internet-connected gadgets hitting the market.

Security experts say the vulnerabilities of “Internet of Things” devices such as fitness bands, smartwatches, drones and connected appliances could be exploited as consumers adopt these products for the holiday season.

Any connected device “can be a pivot point into your network,” said Bruce Snell, cybersecurity and privacy director for Intel Security. Although breaking into a wearable device or drone does not necessarily provide immediate value for a hacker, it can lead to a connection to a smartphone and data which is stored in the Internet cloud, security experts note. “These could potentially install malware that sniffs out all the passwords on your network and sends them to a remote location,” Snell told AFP.

For easier use, many consumer gadgets use relatively insecure connections and often require minimal use of passwords or other authentication.

Gary Davis, who heads consumer online safety for Intel, said the holidays could be a vulnerable time for consumers and a time for hackers to celebrate.

“With the excitement of getting new devices, consumers often are so eager to begin using them that they do not take time to properly secure them,” he wrote. In some cases, security can be improved by simply changing the password on the device, which may be something as simple as 1234 or 0000, but many people fail to do this.

“When you get that shiny new toy for Christmas, you want to just get it working,” said Alastair Paterson, chief executive at the security firm Digital Shadows.

Exposing documents Paterson noted that with a blurring of lines between work and leisure time, many people take home sensitive corporate material that can be then stored in a hackable home network. In some cases, Paterson said, “just by connecting it to the home Wi-Fi network, they are exposing documents to the entire Internet.”

The research firm Gartner earlier this month forecast that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 2020.

Juniper Research predicts “smart toy” sales will hit $2.8 billion this year, while noting that “vendors will likely require third-party software expertise to avoid PR disasters caused by hackers.” Smart home devices such as thermostats can be a gateway for hackers, according to a report this year by researchers at TrapX Labs.

The researchers took apart and then used a Nest thermostat as a point of attack for a home network and were able to track the users' Internet surfing activity and get access to their private credentials.

The report said that even though Nest “is relatively secure,” there is a concern “that the manufacturers of IoT devices at all points in the supply chain do not seem to have the economic incentives to provide initial cybersecurity... the manufacturers involved with IoT are obsessed with cost-cutting and minimal design footprints.”