Burglary in a smart-home
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:44 am
Burglary in a smart-home
The neighbors of the cybernaut family are technology fanatics. They are always up to date and have ended up converting their house into what is known as a smart-home . This set of devices and technologies applied to the control and automation of the home is known as home automation.
To a greater or lesser extent, almost all household tasks are automated in one cambodia phone number data way or another: the cleaning robot turns on in the morning to sweep and clean the floors, the refrigerator does the shopping, the thermostat regulates the temperature and the lights turn off when they don't detect anyone in the house, among many other things.
Protect your device from threats in attachments
In short, they have a connected smart home where all devices exchange information with each other to make life easier for family members. However, as we have already seen, everything that is connected to the network is not free from possible attacks by cybercriminals.
In this case, the neighbouring family went on holiday for a weekend. When they returned from their days off, they couldn't believe what they saw. The door to their house was wide open and their most precious possessions had disappeared. They had no idea how this could have happened to such a well-prepared home.
How could this happen?
Despite the technological improvements in the neighbouring home, thieves had broken in over the weekend and made off with all their valuables. It was no ordinary theft, as it had been carried out by a group of cybercriminals who took control of the networked devices in these types of smart homes and waited for the right moment to strike.
It seems that the attackers had managed to hack into the family home's Wi-Fi network and with that, it was very easy for them to control the rest of the devices connected to it. These types of smart devices usually connect to the Wi-Fi network through a WPS protocol with "External Register" type authentication.
Example of an attack via WiFi
Any cybercriminal without much knowledge of the subject would be able to obtain the PIN using brute force attacks. Once inside, it was very easy for them to monitor the information traffic and decrypt the data exchanged between the router and the smart devices or “IoT devices”.
With all this information and monitoring the flow of information for several weeks, the cybercriminals only had to wait and, seeing the lack of activity in the thermostat, intuit that the family had gone on vacation.
The cybercriminals were most likely monitoring several homes at the same time. After detecting an irregularity in the routines of the devices in one of them, the attackers went to the place, confirmed their suspicions and finally committed the robbery.
What is the moral of the story?
While it is true that technology advances very quickly and that its features and advantages are very attractive for us, as consumers, since we live in the information age, this entails certain risks. We must be aware that our privacy can be compromised if we are not careful.
When purchasing this type of device, one of our priorities when choosing between one or another is to assess its security, as well as its technical characteristics.
As with good cybersecurity practices, we must stay informed and keep the software on these types of devices always up to date. They usually include security improvements that will protect us against certain types of attacks.
The neighbors of the cybernaut family are technology fanatics. They are always up to date and have ended up converting their house into what is known as a smart-home . This set of devices and technologies applied to the control and automation of the home is known as home automation.
To a greater or lesser extent, almost all household tasks are automated in one cambodia phone number data way or another: the cleaning robot turns on in the morning to sweep and clean the floors, the refrigerator does the shopping, the thermostat regulates the temperature and the lights turn off when they don't detect anyone in the house, among many other things.
Protect your device from threats in attachments
In short, they have a connected smart home where all devices exchange information with each other to make life easier for family members. However, as we have already seen, everything that is connected to the network is not free from possible attacks by cybercriminals.
In this case, the neighbouring family went on holiday for a weekend. When they returned from their days off, they couldn't believe what they saw. The door to their house was wide open and their most precious possessions had disappeared. They had no idea how this could have happened to such a well-prepared home.
How could this happen?
Despite the technological improvements in the neighbouring home, thieves had broken in over the weekend and made off with all their valuables. It was no ordinary theft, as it had been carried out by a group of cybercriminals who took control of the networked devices in these types of smart homes and waited for the right moment to strike.
It seems that the attackers had managed to hack into the family home's Wi-Fi network and with that, it was very easy for them to control the rest of the devices connected to it. These types of smart devices usually connect to the Wi-Fi network through a WPS protocol with "External Register" type authentication.
Example of an attack via WiFi
Any cybercriminal without much knowledge of the subject would be able to obtain the PIN using brute force attacks. Once inside, it was very easy for them to monitor the information traffic and decrypt the data exchanged between the router and the smart devices or “IoT devices”.
With all this information and monitoring the flow of information for several weeks, the cybercriminals only had to wait and, seeing the lack of activity in the thermostat, intuit that the family had gone on vacation.
The cybercriminals were most likely monitoring several homes at the same time. After detecting an irregularity in the routines of the devices in one of them, the attackers went to the place, confirmed their suspicions and finally committed the robbery.
What is the moral of the story?
While it is true that technology advances very quickly and that its features and advantages are very attractive for us, as consumers, since we live in the information age, this entails certain risks. We must be aware that our privacy can be compromised if we are not careful.
When purchasing this type of device, one of our priorities when choosing between one or another is to assess its security, as well as its technical characteristics.
As with good cybersecurity practices, we must stay informed and keep the software on these types of devices always up to date. They usually include security improvements that will protect us against certain types of attacks.