Can TVs and refrigerators really spew botnet spam

siljaline · Apr 25, 2014

Bosch's Home Connect app will control competitors' appliances

BSH, the European manufacturer behind brands like Bosch and Siemens, announced a new smart home platform today, including an app that will offer consumers control over all of their connected appliances -- even ones from rival manufacturers. The app, Home Connect, will make its debut this fall at the IFA consumer electronics conference in Berlin, along with the first connected appliances from Bosch and Siemens.

Speaking at an IFA event in Belek, Turkey, Home Connect Project Manager Claudia Häpp explained that while 90 percent of households feature appliances from different brands, 66 percent of consumers want to be able to control them all from a single app. That's the ultimate goal for Home Connect, which will be available on iOS devices by the year's end, with an Android version due out in early 2015. [...]
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http://www.cnet.com/news/boschs-home-connect-app-will-control-competitors-appliances/

siljaline · May 5, 2014

Infecting DVRs with Bitcoin-mining malware even easier than you suspected

It took just one day for a low-end, Internet-connected digital video recorder to become infected with malware that surreptitiously mined Bitcoins on behalf of the quick-moving attackers.
The feat, documented in a blog post published Monday by researchers at the security-training outfit Sans Institute, was all the more impressive because the DVR contained no interface for downloading software from the Internet. The lack of a Wget, ftp, or kermit application posed little challenge for the attackers. To work around the limitation, the miscreants used a series of Unix commands that effectively uploaded and executed a Wget package and then used it to retrieve the Bitcoin miner from an Internet-connected server.
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http://arstechnica.com/security/201...oin-mining-malware-even-easier-you-suspected/

Dermot7 · May 10, 2014

Smart tellies with built-in microphones and storage can be turned into bugging devices by malware and used to record conversations, security experts at NCC Group said. And they demonstrated exactly that just down the road from the Infosec Europe conference, held in London.

"Installing the bugging software requires physical access to the device, which is how we did it, or by installing a malicious app," said Felix Ingram, principal consultant at NCC Group.

"Malicious apps could be downloaded from the manufacturer’s app store. The TV does have the option for auto-updating, so releasing a legitimate app, then releasing a malicious update, is another attack vector."

In other words, Ingram's research shows smart TVs can be abused in much the same way that dodgy apps on Android software stores hijack smartphones and tablets.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/10/smarttv_bugging/

noone_particular · May 10, 2014

The idea that internet capable appliances and other IoT devices can be taken over isn't really a surprise to me. What really gets me is that they'd go through all that trouble to send spam. What a waste of time and talent.

siljaline · May 12, 2014

Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers

For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other internet devices pose a "threat" because they are built with backdoor surveillance functionality that gives the Chinese government the ability to spy on anyone using them. Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in precisely the activity that the US accused the Chinese of doing.
The drumbeat of American accusations against Chinese internet device manufacturers was unrelenting. In 2012, for example, a report from the House Intelligence Committee, headed by Mike Rogers, claimed that Huawei and ZTE, the top two Chinese telecommunications equipment companies, "may be violating United States laws" and have "not followed United States legal obligations or international standards of business behaviour". The committee recommended that "the United States should view with suspicion the continued penetration of the US telecommunications market by Chinese telecommunications companies".
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http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden

siljaline · May 12, 2014

Dermot7 said: ↑

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/10/smarttv_bugging/
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Thanks for this.

siljaline · May 13, 2014

Samsung's NX300 cam is bad in bed: Snatch victims' pics over the air

The relentless push to differentiate otherwise-mundane products by adding intelligence has tripped up Samsung, after its NX300 camera was found to offer up everything from user location leaks to remote code execution.
The NX300 is a midrange camera that follows the trend towards adding NFC and WiFi capabilities so that users don't need to mess around with cables to move images and video around. However, according to German blogger and engineer George Lukas, the implementations leave a lot to be desired.
Working only on the visible – and easy-to-exploit – level of looking at its external communications, Lukas documents faults in the camera's NFC tag, its X server implementation, and its WiFi.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/08/samsung_nx300_security_review/

ronjor · May 21, 2014

By
Rolfe Winkler

In a December letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was disclosed Tuesday, the search giant said that it could be serving ads and other content on “refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.”
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http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/21/google-predicts-ads-in-odd-spots-like-thermostats/

CloneRanger · May 21, 2014

I predict that some people @ Google are ODD & mentally ill !

TheWindBringeth · May 21, 2014

In 2025...

#1 = View one ad for a short flush
#2 = View two ads for a full flush

noone_particular · May 21, 2014

If they have their way, their ads will be the digital equivalent of a cockroach infestation. What we need is a Google exterminator that works on all those forms of lowlife.

siljaline · May 21, 2014

You may soon need to install a thermostat or fridge adblocker

Ads, they are everywhere on the Internet, on television, radio, on the street and in magazines. One safe haven remains, and that is your home, provided that you are not browsing the Internet, watching TV, listening to radio or reading magazines.

That's about to change though if Google gets its way. In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, sent in December but disclosed yesterday, it confirmed that it had plans to bring advertisement to "refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, watches" and other devices and locations a few years from now.
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http://www.ghacks.net/2014/05/21/may-soon-need-install-thermostat-fridge-adblocker/

Nebulus · May 26, 2014

I seriously don't know why would someone connect a fridge to the internet...

emmjay · May 26, 2014

There should be no returns on an appliance with a bug in it. I am sure it is in the warranty somewhere.

siljaline · Jul 1, 2014

Keurig coffee pods and DRM in the news again.

No company has done more to change the way Americans drink coffee in the last several years than Keurig Green Mountain. Its method of brewing coffee by injecting hot water into prepackaged plastic pods has quickly grown to rival drip coffee as the preferred means of getting a quick hit of caffeine. "It was slow to start, but now it’s growing by leaps and bounds," says Joe DeRupo, communications director at the National Coffee Association. "It’s the biggest change in coffee-brewing technology since Mr. Coffee was introduced in the 1970s."
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http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/30/5857030/keurig-digital-rights-management-coffee-pod-pirates

siljaline · Jul 8, 2014

Crypto weakness in smart LED lightbulbs exposes Wi-Fi passwords

In the latest cautionary tale involving the so-called Internet of things, white-hat hackers have devised an attack against network-connected lightbulbs that exposes Wi-Fi passwords to anyone in proximity to one of the LED devices.
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http://arstechnica.com/security/201...smart-led-lightbulbs-exposes-wi-fi-passwords/

Reality · Jul 8, 2014

Crypto weakness in smart LED lightbulbs exposes Wi-Fi passwords
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Crazy

mirimir · Jul 8, 2014

They should start saying "the Internet of things that go 'bump' in the night"

lotuseclat79 · Jul 12, 2014

Hacking Your Fridge – Internet of Things Security.

So one of the latest fads is IoT or the Internet of things phenomena which has been talked about for a while (especially since the discussion of IPv6 started), IoT is connecting physical items to the Internet and giving them some kind of IP (be in NAT or a proper IPv6 address).

This enabled you to control your lights (on/off & dimming) via your phone, or anything else that can be connected (turn on your kettle, check your fridge temperature, warm up your oven etc).

The possibilities are basically endless.

The issues IoT brings is of course a whole new set of security concerns, if everything is Internet connected, it’s also prone to get hacked, spammed, DDoSed and generally fscked up.
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Reference: Fridge hacked. Car hacked. Next up, your LIGHT BULBS.

So shall you languish in darkness - or under disco-style strobes - FOREVER
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-- Tom

siljaline · Jul 15, 2014

Novartis and Google to develop 'smart' contact lens

(Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis has struck an agreement with Google to develop "smart" contact lenses that would help diabetics to track their blood glucose levels or restore the eye's ability to focus.
Non-invasive sensors, microchips and other miniaturized electronics would be embedded into the contact lenses.
Under the deal, Novartis's Alcon eyecare unit will further develop and commercialize the lens technologies designed by Google[x], the American company's development team.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-novartis-google-ceo-idUSKBN0FK0U320140715

siljaline · Jul 26, 2014

How Thieves Can Hack and Disable Your Home Alarm System

When it comes to the security of the Internet of Things, a lot of the attention has focused on the dangers of the connected toaster, fridge and thermostat. But a more insidious security threat lies with devices that aren’t even on the internet: wireless home alarms.
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http://www.wired.com/2014/07/hacking-home-alarms/
Author is on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KimZetter

siljaline · Jul 27, 2014

The "Internet of Things" or IoT -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things

siljaline · Jul 28, 2014

More on the "Internet of Things" and how it's gaining traction with developers.
http://www.zdnet.com/thing-1-thing-...rts-to-gain-a-developer-following-7000032011/

siljaline · Jul 31, 2014

Connected devices have huge security holes

A study by the Hewlett-Packard security unit Fortify found 70 per cent of the most commonly used "Internet of Things" devices contain vulnerabilities, including inadequate passwords or encryption, or lax access restrictions.
"While the Internet of Things will connect and unify countless objects and systems, it also presents a significant challenge in fending off the adversary given the expanded attack surface," said Mike Armistead, vice-president and general manager for Fortify's enterprise security, on Tuesday.
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http://www.zdnet.com/connected-devices-have-huge-security-holes-7000032131/

Minimalist · Jul 31, 2014

Devices collected and stored private data such as names, email addresses and credit card details, and also failed to encrypt such data. Others allowed users to set weak passwords – with several devices allowing passwords such as “1234”. Half of the devices under test did not encrypt communications to the cloud, network or internet.
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http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/07/30/internet-of-things/

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