KUALA LUMPUR, February 24 “Smart” devices can “leak” the data of their owners, users need to take this risk into account, and cheap gadgets only increase the likelihood of such a leak, a Kaspersky expert said ICS CERT Vladimir Dashchenko.
He noted that in general, “smart” devices do not need to be considered threats, because they are now actively used, for example, in industry to obtain data and predictive analytics, which helps business development, but in special cases you need to be careful with them.
“The question is how do we use smart devices and are we smart enough to use them? We need to learn how to handle them in such a way that we are prepared for the device to leak our data,” he shared his opinion on Cyber Security Weekend conference.
In such cases, it is risky to save on buying devices: “If you buy a super-cheap, let’s say, Chinese device, which is completely tied to its infrastructure, where security is not guaranteed at all, you need to be prepared for the fact that you and your data in this case become a commodity themselves,” the expert adds.
At the same time, some attacks on smart devices do not require complex implementation. If attackers discover an attack vector on one device, they can use similar tactics on other similar gadgets across the Internet. A compromised smart device can be used as an entry point for attacks on other devices within the network. And such a development of events implies the compromise of a larger number of devices of one user.
«The more there are, the more interesting they are to hackers and, accordingly, the higher the risk of a potential attack, most often — DDOS, when such an «army» of infected devices can attack the infrastructure of a major player. There has already been a case when infected routers, smart cameras, and so on interfered with the operation of the infrastructure of Deutsche Telecom, a very large telecom operator in Europe,» Dashchenko recalled.
The case of a major leak of photographs of users of “smart” vacuum cleaners with spherical cameras, as well as the incident with fitness bracelets, when they were used to discover secret military bases in the desert, also had a great resonance in the market, the expert noted. Data can also be collected from smart speakers, he believes.
«Officially, manufacturers warn that they can collect personal data for statistics — voice, movements, and so on for personalization settings, marketing purposes, and so on. The same Samsung officially stated that it does not stand near their “smart” TVs, even turned off, discuss important information. So the fact that data can be collected — obviously, they can, the question is how they are then used and stored, how they are protected from leaks,» Dashchenko concluded.