Last week’s cyberattack that shut down many popular websites occurred in part with the use of smart devices. This interesting information came to us from USA Today in their article, “How your DVR was hijacked to help epic cyberattack.”
An unknown attacker intermittently knocked many popular websites offline for hours – from Amazon to Twitter and Netflix to Etsy. The massive siege on Dyn, a New Hampshire-based company that monitors and routes Internet traffic, serves as a cautionary tale of the how the rush to smarten up devices can sometimes leave out security measures.
The attackers created a digital army of co-opted robot networks, a “botnet,” that spewed millions of nonsense messages at Dyn’s servers. The specific weapon was a piece of software that requires little technical expertise.
More focus needs to be put on security in smart devices outside phones and computers. Yes, that includes your smart refrigerator and thermostat.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
