Last week BBC Future published a piece called Internet of Things: The ‘ghosts’ that haunt the machine. The article discusses the potential long-term network congestion that could come about from noisy IoT devices. The Cavalry gets a mention and a quote, in the context of the potential for takeover of the devices, either by targeting the endpoints or by taking over expired domains for update servers, etc.
Once the ghost machine is taken over, the potential for damage is considerable, says Beau Woods, a founding member of I Am The Cavalry, an organisation focusing on protecting the general public from digital attacks. “What could someone malicious do if they could modify or replace the software on the device? This could range from pranks, like funny photos on a fridge screen, to making profits by inserting advertisements on your television, to interception by digitally eavesdropping on your home network, to disablement through wrecking the software on the device, to doing physical damage by overloading the electronics or burning out a motor. In automobiles, medical devices, public transport, airplanes and other more critical systems the damage could be much more severe.”
The story hit the front page of the BBC website, which gave us some good exposure to a global audience.
