March 28, 2024

Fast Web-based Attacks to Discover and Control IoT Devices

By Gunes Acar, Danny Y. Huang, Frank Li, Arvind Narayanan, and Nick Feamster Two web-based attacks against IoT devices made the rounds this week. Researchers Craig Young and Brannon Dorsey showed that a well known attack technique called “DNS rebinding” can be used to control your smart thermostat, detect your home address or extract unique […]

Announcing IoT Inspector: Studying Smart Home IoT Device Behavior

By Noah Apthorpe, Danny Y. Huang, Gunes Acar, Frank Li, Arvind Narayanan, Nick Feamster An increasing number of home devices, from thermostats to light bulbs to garage door openers, are now Internet-connected. This “Internet of Things” (IoT) promises reduced energy consumption, more effective health management, and living spaces that react adaptively to users’ lifestyles. Unfortunately, […]

Pragmatic advice for buying “Internet of Things” devices

We’re hearing an increasing amount about security flaws in “Internet of Things” devices, such as a “messaging” teddy bear with poor security or perhaps Samsung televisions being hackable to become snooping devices. How are you supposed to make purchasing decisions for all of these devices when you have no idea how they work or if […]

Mitigating the Increasing Risks of an Insecure Internet of Things

The emergence and proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices on industrial, enterprise, and home networks brings with it unprecedented risk. The potential magnitude of this risk was made concrete in October 2016, when insecure Internet-connected cameras launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a provider of DNS service for many large […]

Concerned about Internet of Things Security?

There is no shortage of warnings about the need to improve security for the Internet of Things: The Guardian asks “Can we secure the internet of things in time to prevent another cyber-attack?”. The New York Times calls for “Stepping up Security for an Internet of Things world”. Technology Review reports that Security Experts Warn […]