My last article a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the recent denial of service attack that took out major sites such as Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, SoundCloud, and others.
Did you know that you might have unknowingly taken part in launching that attack?
It basically occurred because hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected devices had been compromised and started flooding specific targets on the Internet with junk traffic. Think of it like you standing in line at a fast food restaurant, and there are 100 people in front of you. Each starts asking questions about the menu, and then eventually walks away without ordering anything. Sure, you’ll get your food – eventually – but it will take a LONG time and in the meantime, the restaurant isn’t making any money and no one is actually ordering food.
In the past, most of these types of attacks – known as DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attacks – were from compromised computers turned into “bots” (short for “robots”). You get an infection on your computer and it sits waiting for instructions from the hacker telling it to do something bad like launch an attack.
The current attacks have been different because they were launched by “things” on the Internet – devices such as security cameras, printers, smart thermostats, smart refrigerators, etc. These are devices which typically have very little security, often still have the default passwords, don’t run any anti-malware software, and are essentially ignored.
What can you do to try to prevent being part of the problem?
Well, for one thing, don’t open up your network to allow outside access to these types of devices. Change the passwords. Have a good firewall that blocks not only incoming traffic but all OUTGOING traffic other than what’s specifically desired. Have country blocking to prevent access to control servers in foreign countries. Monitor your network so you know what’s happening. And never think, “No one will hack ME” because most of the time, it is done by automatically scanning everything accessible on the Internet.
If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do, or just want to chat about the problems, give us a call or send us an email.
