Spam Comes from Your Own Fridge

Not a PC, a laptop or a tablet: it's been a fridge to send spam all over the world and start the more frightening cyberattack ever. Proofpoint Inc., a digital security-as-a-service provider, has recently pointed out that as far as 25 percent of 750,000 malicious emails sent worldwide from December 23, 2013 and January 6, 2014 did not come from traditional computers but from more than 100,000 everyday consumer gadgets such as home-networking routers, connected multi-media centers, televisions and at least one refrigerator.

How could that be? It is a consequence of "Internet of Things": one of the strongest hi-tech trends that embeds microcomputers in everyday gadgets, to connect them to the Internet and run apps. There are lots of examples: from smart TVs to security cameras, from refrigerators to ovens, from industrial machinery to smart retail shelves able to ask by themselves for replenishing.

"Many of these devices are poorly protected", said David Knight, General Manager of Proofpoint's Information Security division: they don't have the anti-spam and anti-virus systems we have on our computers, thus it's relatively easy for ciber criminals to commandeer home routers, smart appliances and other hi-tech things and transform them into "thingbots" to launch large-scale cyberattacks.

Smart gadgets are quite difficult to monitor as well: "Consumers have virtually no way to detect or fix infections when they do occur", adds Mr. Knight, "Enterprises may find distributed attacks increasing as more and more of these devices come on-line". It's a danger we'll have to cope with, since more than 200 billion things will be connected via the Internet by 2020, predicts IDC, a global provider of market intelligence.

Among these things we already have private cars with drive-by-wire throttles and steering, and near-self driving capabilities. And by 2025, according to automotive analysts, fully atonomous vehicles will debut: none of us would like to be there, should a cyber criminal succeed in hacking them. And even if this menace seems far away to come, start keeping an eye on your kitchen gadgets: they might be already plotting against you!