There’s Spam in Your Fridge, and It’s Not in a Can!

Lack of security among smart devices makes them highly vulnerable to attack.

Earlier this year, there was a sobering report on how hackers managed to pull off an impressive cyber attack not just using laptops or tablets, but instead, by adding televisions, home routers, thermostats and even – are you sitting down? – a refrigerator!  Yes, you read right.   With the onset of “smart appliances” – meaning items that are hooked up to the Internet for the purpose of easy use and nifty features – a whole new market has opened up to the world’s resourceful and aggressive hacker community.  Translation: it’s party time for cybercriminals.  

“The Internet of Things” is a new trend that’s bringing interconnection between any and all products in your home that can hold a computer chip, including things previously considered non-traditional Internet-connected gadgets – for example, your innocent household appliances.  And the trend is growing by leaps and bounds. Gartner, one of the world’s leading I.T. research and advisory companies, predicts that by 2020, as many as 30 billion devices will be connected to the Internet of Things, and through applications across multiple fields and industries.  Sure, this newfangled environment can let you set your washer and dryer remotely, but there’s no denying that there’s a dark side to this level of convenience.

Smart appliances may not be as smart as we think.  For starters, they don’t come with much security. Their Internet connections are wide open and rarely if ever monitored.  Even worse, they generally use simple or even default passwords, such as “admin.” This is all music to a hacker’s ears. The lack of security among these items makes them highly vulnerable to attack. In a matter of moments, that washer and dryer you just programmed can be repurposed into major spam-sending machines. Today’s goCloudOffice lesson?  Security must always remain a top priority.

While experts are still developing security measures to avert smart appliances from becoming the next cyber-villains, computers, thankfully, can be protected from hackers much more easily and effectively. At goCloudOffice, we know how important security is, which is why we provide and manage safeguards that make it exponentially harder for hackers to break into your machines. Our security maintenance protocols protect critical data such as financial information and intellectual property, and secure your system from breaches caused by unauthorized access. We’re well aware of the relentless nature of cyber-criminals, so we make it our business to stay one step ahead of them by bringing our clients the most current, most secure protection updates as soon as they’re available.

So if your icemaker isn’t working or your milk smells funny, we can’t help you out.  But – if you’re looking for the best small business tech support and cloud technology team in the area, give us a call.  You can be sure that we’ll keep your system running, your business humming, and hackers from coming.  (In the meantime, we’ll keep working on the poetry thing…)