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This nonsense about refrigerators being part of a botnet is not an accurate depiction of the world we live in today, but more of a warning of where things can go wrong in the future, while technologists are rushing headlong into the Internet of Things (IoT). While there are certainly some interesting real-world examples of unintended consequences of consumer devices being infected by Trojan Horse programs and other malware (e.g. digital cameras and picture frames coming directly into the retail market "pre-infected" from the manufacturer, hospital healthcare devices becoming infected by computer worms through incidental contact, etc.), most cases today are incidental. Via BoingBoing: "A mediagenic press-release from Proofpoint, a security firm, announced that its researchers had discovered a 100,000-device-strong botnet made up of hacked 'Internet of Things' appliances, such as refrigerators. The story's very interesting, but also wildly implausible as Ars Technica's Dan Goodin explains." "The report is light on technical details, and the details that the company supplied to Goodin later just don't add up. Nevertheless, the idea of embedded systems being recruited to botnets isn't inherently implausible, and some of the attacks that Ang Cui has demonstrated scare the heck out of me." http://boingboing.net/2014/01/18/your-refrigerator-probably-has.html Don't get sucked in by the IoT marketing hype, but -- and it is a *big* but -- there definitely is a potential for this headlong rush into the Internet of Things can develop into the unfortunate situation where no one spent enough time thinking about the security posture of such actions. If no one spends time up front thinking about these implications, we can have a real mess on our collective hands. - - ferg - -- Paul Ferguson PGP Public Key ID: 0x54DC85B2 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iF4EAREIAAYFAlLb/voACgkQKJasdVTchbK2gAEAkVHL7DP6ZHZFvR/11XYArhMD rK27pe++vBn/H/3xN40BAJuOJ70GJwS9W+rGPgXwvRADLJpcWPQhB2MwBuO8CY1B =9tBD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
