Internet of Things | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

What's the coolest part of the Iron Man movies? The hyper-intelligent Artificial Intelligence that helps Tony Stark by doing data analysis, charging his armor, presenting information at crucial times and doing other business operations. That's right — we are talking about J.A.R.V.I.S. , Iron Man's personal assistant. We all dream of having one of its kinds, and even Facebook's Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ambitions to live more like Iron Man's superhero Tony Stark. While disclosing his 2016 resolution via a Facebook post on Sunday, Zuckerberg revealed that he is planning to build his own Artificial Intelligence to help him run his home and assist him at office — similar to Iron Man's digital butler Edwin Jarvis . "You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man," Zuckerberg wrote in his Facebook post . "I'll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home — music, lights, tempe

Meet an all-new Hacker's Search Engine similar to Shodan – Censys . At the end of last month, security researchers from SEC Consult found that the lazy manufacturers of home routers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices have been re-using the same set of hard-coded cryptographic keys , leaving around 3 millions of IoT devices open to mass hijacking. But how did the researchers get this number? Researchers uncovered these devices with the help of Censys – a new search engine that daily scans the whole Internet for all the vulnerable devices. Censys Maintains Complete Database of Everything on The Internet Censys is similar to hacker's search engine Shodan , which is designed specifically to locate any devices that have been carelessly plugged into the Internet without much attempt at preventing unauthorized access. However, Censys employs a more advanced method to find vulnerabilities in the devices and make the Internet a safer place. Censys is a fre

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

As much as you protect your electronics from being hacked, hackers are clever enough at finding new ways to get into your devices. But, you would hope that once a flaw discovered it would at least be fixed in few days or weeks, but that's not always the case. A three-year-old security vulnerability within a software component used by more than 6.1 Million smart devices still remains unpatched by many vendors, thereby placing Smart TVs, Routers, Smartphones, and other Internet of Things (IoT) products at risk of exploit. Security researchers at Trend Micro have brought the flaw to light that has been known since 2012 but has not been patched yet. Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities  Researchers discovered a collection of Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in the Portable SDK for UPnP , or libupnp component – a software library used by mobile devices, routers, smart TVs, and other IoT devices to stream media files over a network. The flaws occur du

Earlier this month, a massive data breach at VTech – the maker of tablets and gadgets aimed at children – exposed the personal details of about 4.8 Million parents and photos of more than 200,000 Children. If that was not bad enough… …it turns out that the massive cyber attack against the toymaker company also left hundreds of thousands of snaps of parents and children , as well as a year worth of chat logs kept online in a way easily accessible to hackers. VTech Data Breach In a statement released Monday, the toymaker company VTech said the hacked database included victim's profile information including: Customers' names Email addresses Passwords ( One-way encrypted using MD5 hash that can be cracked in no time ) Secret questions and answers for password retrieval IP addresses Residential addresses Download history The database also included information on children including names, genders and date of births. Also Read: Caution! Hackers Ca

Millions of embedded devices, including home routers, modems, IP cameras, VoIP phones, are shareing the same hard-coded SSH (Secure Shell) cryptographic keys or HTTPS (HTTP Secure) server certificates that expose them to various types of malicious attacks. A new analysis by IT security consultancy SEC Consult shows that the lazy manufacturers of the Internet of Things (IoTs) and Home Routers are reusing the same set of hard-coded cryptographic keys, leaving devices open to Hijacking. In simple words, this means that if you are able to access one device remotely, you can possibly log into hundreds of thousands of other devices – including the devices from different manufacturers. Re-Using Same Encryption Keys In its survey of IoT devices , the company studied 4,000 embedded devices from 70 different hardware vendors, ranging from simple home routers to Internet gateway servers, and discovered that… …over 580 unique private cryptographic keys for SSH and HTTPS a

Several video baby monitors from six different manufacturers were under scrutiny for in-depth security testing, and the outcome was negative. Yes, they lacked in serving basic security through their devices. At the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA) conference on September 2, 2015, a critical security research was made public by Rapid7 after following a disclosure policy. A month ago, The Hacker News (THN) posted about how IoT is making the smart cities vulnerable to the technology. Similarly, this time a highly personal IoT device i.e. ' Baby Monitors ' has been anticipated as a victim of hacking of such devices. According to a 2014 Gartner's report, the IoT space is expected to be crowded with over 25 billion devices in five years, i.e. by 2020. Reportedly, ten vulnerabilities were found in the Baby Monitoring devices and the related vendors were contacted to get their comments on how are they going to address the severe flaws residing

Are you a proud owner of a Smartwatch, a Smart TV , a Smart fridge, a Smart lock, an Internet-enabled car , or live in a smart city? Caution! Recently, it has been reported that the growth of the Internet of Things would eventually lead to cyber criminals in making lots of money, as they started attacking the Internet of Things for Ransom. Yes, the latest Interest of the cyber criminals in the field of Internet of Things is ' Ransomware '. Internet of Things (IoT) such as Android and iOS-based wearable Smartwatches and the concept of connected homes has now given a treat to the current generation Ransomware. With the advancements in Technology, cyber criminals are simultaneously promoting themselves from the threat known for restricting computers or encrypting files and asking users for money in return for gaining back access to their systems. From computers to mobile phones, now criminals are targeting the IoT and the wearables devices. Security resea

In the month of February 2015, second generation Raspberry Pi was made available and was commonly known as Raspberry Pi 2 . Buzz was that Windows 10 will be supporting the hardware for its compatibility with the smart objects, popularly known as the ' Internet of Things '. So, finally the Free version of Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2 is here. On Monday, public release of Microsoft's Windows 10 for IoT Core, offering support for the Raspberry Pi 2 and the Minnowboard Max , was made available. Microsoft's goal of spreading Windows 10 to a Billion user is going to get fulfilled with this specially trimmed edition for small and embedded devices, that may or may not have screens. Also for devices with screens, Windows 10 IoT Core operating system does not have a Windows shell experience; rather you can write a Universal Windows app that is the interface and 'personality' for your device. It's neither the Windows, as we already are familiar with, nor a substitut

Security researchers have developed a Flying Drone with a custom-made tracking tool capable of sniffing out data from the devices connected to the Internet – better known as the Internet-of-things. Under its Internet of Things Map Project , a team of security researchers at the Texas-based firm Praetorian wanted to create a searchable database that will be the Shodan search engine for SCADA devices. Located More Than 1600+ Devices Using Drone To make it possible, the researchers devised a drone with their custom built connected-device tracking appliance and flew it over Austin, Texas in real time. During an 18 minute flight, the drone found nearly 1,600 Internet-connected devices , of which 453 IoT devices are made by Sony and 110 by Philips. You can see the full Austin map here . How did They locate Internet of Things Devices? The researchers located all ZigBee-enabled smart devices and networks and then started expanding their research. "When [I

Remember the previously demonstrated technique to Hack into air-gapped computers using Heat waves? What if the same was possible to hack computers to steal data using Sound waves ? Imagine, If a remote hacker could steal classified information from a targeted computer without having to physically and Internet access to it. A team of security researchers has demonstrated exactly the same by developing a new hacking technique called Funtenna that uses sound and radio waves to siphon data from computers even without Internet access. According to a lead researcher Ang Cui of Red Balloon Security, the Funtenna radio signal hack has the potential to turn Internet-connected devices (printer, washing machine and air conditioner) – popularly known as the Internet of Things – into bugs that can transmit data out of a network using sound waves that can not be heard by a human ear. How Funtenna Works? The attacker only needs to install malware on a target's devic

Internet of Things (IoT) with the purpose of providing convenience to the users enabled every object in the universe to be as smart as a whip. By assigning IP address to all sorts of devices, ranging from household appliances, machines, medical devices and sensors to other day-to-day objects, and putting them all together on a standardised network is a common Internet of Things (IoT) practice. Is Internet of Things Secure? In my previous articles, I gave you a glance of the most vulnerable smart cities that are increasingly adopting devices connected to the Internet in an attempt to add convenience and ease to daily activities. By 2020, there will be more than 45 Billion Internet-connected devices that will transform the way we live and work. The bottom line: As the number of IoT enabled systems increases, the complexity of handling them increases; leading to an introduction of new risk and vulnerabilities associated with them. Security of Internet of

Imagine… You drive to work in your Smart-Car connected to the GPS automatically, but a hacker breaks into your car's network, takes control of the steering wheel, crashes you into a tree, and BOOM ! Believe it or not, such cyber attacks on smart devices are becoming reality. Car Hacking was recently demonstrated by a pair of security researchers who controlled a Jeep Cherokee remotely from miles away, which shows a rather severe threat to the growing market of the Internet of Things (IoT) . Internet of Things (IoT) — A technology that connects objects to a network or the Internet, and enables interaction among varied devices such as: Smart Cars Smart TVs Refrigerators Wearables Routers Other embedded computing as well as non-computing devices. Few days back, I had read about Smart Dustbins that are the latest smart objects to become Wi-Fi-enabled. Internet of Things to make Cities Smart or Dumb? Cities around the world are becoming