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IT HAS TO be annoying when your fridge sends spam without your knowledge, but how would you feel if a hacker with a smartphone disabled your car brakes or even remotely hijacked your plane?
Those security-risk scenarios may not be as far-fetched as you think.
Indeed, a fridge has already been caught sending spam.
Security provider Thinkpoint Inc. said last month it had uncovered more than 750,000 malicious emails from more than 100,000 everyday consumer gadgets such as home-networking routers, multi-media centres, televisions and at least one refrigerator.
Just as hackers can take over personal computers, creating robot-like “botnets” to send spam or other emails, now they are compromising Internet-connected objects, or “thingbots’ for the same ends.
“Many of these devices are poorly protected at best and consumers have virtually no way to detect or fix infections when they do occur,” said David Knight, general manager of Proofpoint’s information security division.
Rik Ferguson, vice president in charge of security research for Japan-headquartered Trend Micro, said the most common mobile security threats now were viruses designed to make your smartphone send a premium-cost text message or even make a premium-cost call without your knowledge.
Next on the list is spyware, which collects personal information like an address book for malicious ends such as fraud or spam, extending in rare cases to taking video images or sound from an infected device.
But a new, potentially more ominous threat is emerging as more and more everyday objects are connected online and to smartphones, a phenomenon known as the “Internet of Things”.
“Things like connected cars bring the risk of physical damage to persons and property in an attack,” Ferguson said at teh World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
Hacking a car by SMS
“If you can get in through the entertainment system for example, and work your way through the rest of the car if it has not been adequately secured and disable the brakes, then you are going to cause all kinds of damage.”
Equally, a hacker could target a traffic control system, he said.
Last year, a security consultant claimed he could even hijack a passenger plane using a smartphone Android application, Ferguson noted.
The US Federal Aviation Administration manufacturer quickly denied such a vulnerability actually existed.
Even if such spectacular attacks are not an immediate threat, our vulnerability is growing as the Internet spreads its reach yet deeper into our lives, said Vicente Diaz, senior malware analyst at online security group Kaspersky Lab.
More devices mean more opportunities for infiltration, he said.
“That could lead to cross-device infections, but more worrisome is the potential lack of security software and security updates in such devices,” he said.
Security researchers had already demonstrated, for example, that a car could be hacked and used remotely just by sending an SMS text message, he said.
Consumers were sometimes responsible for unwittingly increasing their risks, Diaz warned.
Trading our privacy?
Many people seemed to be happy to trade their privacy for free services, for example allowing free email or messaging applications access to personal data, he said.
Just using a smartphone application can leak reams of personal information if the device has already been compromised, Diaz said.
The Guardian newspaper last month published documents it said were from US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden indicating that US and British spies had been developing ways to use data from smartphone apps such as the smash-hit game Angry Birds.
“Apps such as Angry Birds ask for many permissions, geolocation being an example for some versions. This data is transmitted back home, and is undoubtably juicy for any mass-surveillance operation,” Diaz said.
Finland-based Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds, has stressed that it does not share data, collaborate or collude with any government spy agencies.
“When talking about privacy, having more devices connected to the Internet sending information of ourselves does not sound like great news,” Diaz warned.
“So if you are a user worried about your privacy, be careful in what you consciously share, what permissions your apps are requesting and what technologies better fit your needs.”
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What about introducing financial penalties along with increased sentences. Criminals paying substantial damages to victims of crime, even if that means seizing their assets or making them, in extreme cases, homeless. Holding parents responsible for their Under 16′s in order to minimise social crime. Violent rioters and social media outlets paying for burning buildings and garda cars etc instead of giving the taxpayer the bill. Hit them where it hurts most, just like they do to ‘victims’.
@BarryH: Not sure how the legal system works in that respect but wouldn’t that be a separate, civil case besides the criminal one to award a monetary fine?
@Athena: Most of the laws we have in place are leftovers from Brit rule. Irish ?legislators? couldn’t be bothered on updating them to suit modern society and then we have, as far as I can see, data protection rules, that seem to favour the people ie right / left wing criminals and social media sites, that aim to disrupt society instead of protecting society. If the legislators were doing their job they would make ‘exceptions’ to the laws.
E.G. The Gardai told Instagram to take down the online threats made to Simon Harris and give them the name of the culprit. Instagram replied that that would be in breach of the culprits rights. He is Taoiseach and can ‘ legislate’ Does Simon not think that the common man should be protected more than the criminal?????????
I want to feel sympathy for politicians who are abused but it is in their hands and their fault. They could save the taxpayer millions in libel cases.
About time, a huge step forward!!!!
For heinous cases involving fatalities of course the presiding Judge, having heard all the evidence, should be able to nominate/ sentence with a ‘minimal’ tariff
Life should mean life.
All well and good going forward,Helen nicely done. Maybe find somewhere to put criminals that get tru the revolving door!!!
And judges should be elected.
@AnthonyK: they are. We’ve devolved that role to our elected representatives. Or do you mean like the US system which has proven to more about politics then the rule of law?
@Paul C: Nolan??
There should be minimum sentecens for a lot more crimes. Now its a toss if you have judge Nolan for a suspended sentence or another one for a much harder punishment.
@hans vos: Just go online prior to your trial… he’ll prob give you a high five. A disgrace of an individual.
“minimum”—- not——’minumal’
@Buster Lawless: you’ll need to tell that to the likes of Judges Nolan and O’Donnell not us.
Ain’t much good if the likes of Martin Nolan won’t even lock them up on normal sentences!!
@Michael o connor: Don’t get me started… an absolute disgrace that he’s still on the Bar.
‘Life incommunicado’ in a communications age. I.e., never again permitted to use a phone, computer or any communication device. In this day and age, that would hurt. And take their shoes too. And toss their hair while you’re at it.
@Paul C: Judges should go before the electorate and show what they did to uphold the law and make the society better.
There’s no need for this, sure isn’t Dublin a safe city!
We need to build more prisons so criminals can be given proper sentences. Criminals with 50-100 previous conviction should not be walking the streets for a very long time. Also SA sentences in this country are an absolute joke. 8 years for rape is a ridiculous. I don’t blame some women for not reporting these crimes. Also we need far more consecutive sentences.
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