Towards a new golden age of piracy?

January 13, 2020

The smart health connected objects that are gradually being installed in our daily lives are not without flaws. Cars, weapons, drones … Latest devices to be pointed out: baby monitors. A Boston-based data analytics firm has identified numerous poorly secured devices, and has shown that hackers are also increasingly surfing the Internet of Things wave.

We marveled at the possibilities offered by all these smart health connected objects, seeing how they made our lives easier, then, quickly, we realized that these devices were not foolproof. This time it's Rapid7 who takes care of getting the message across. He reportedly detected ten vulnerabilities in baby monitors from six different companies. These devices are originally intended to reassure parents by allowing them to always have an eye on their child from their smartphone, and interact with them.

The problem ?

smart health connected objects, and in general innovations are a real step towards an easier and smarter life intended to revolutionize our daily lives and fields such as medicine, education, sport, etc. However, it should not be forgotten, in the case of a smart health smart health connected object, that it is precisely smart health connected to the internet in order to be able to communicate with a smartphone. Internet, a fabulous invention, with which No risk does not exist. And the same goes for smart health connected devices.

These flaws can be exploited by hackers, whether they are ill-intentioned or on the contrary wish to help as seen with Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek. The two hackers, who are now collaborating with Uber, have managed to take control of a Jeep Cherokee remotely and go haywire as they please.

(Embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK0SrxBC1xs (/ embed) 

Then comes the turn of a rifle scope smart health connected, which may have been hacked by a couple. Security weaknesses made it possible to modify the rifle's ballistic parameters remotely via Wi-Fi. Fortunately, only the scope was smart health connected, the user of the device must use the trigger of the old-fashioned weapon.

Awareness

The purpose of these hacks for good cause to raise awareness among not only the public, but also manufacturers. On the Rapid7 Community forum, Tod Beardsley introduces each baby monitoring facing a potential attack and highlights the flaw (s) of the device. "The ibabycloud.com website has a vulnerability whereby any authenticated user in the service of ibabycloud.com is able to view the device details of other users, including ehealth recording details (…)".

More than presenting the flaws, the author of the post suggests possible solutions, such as inquiring with the vendor about a possible firmware update. At the end of his post, Tod Beardsley specifies that he not only pointing to baby monitors, but IoT in general and the many weaknesses that smart health connected objects still have.

Smartwatches also get hacked

Another example of smart health connected devices that can be hacked: smartwatches, these new cutting-edge accessories which however are not hermetic to the attacks. In a previous article, we explained how malicious people could be tempted to use ransomware or brute force attacks to make money. Experiments have also been carried out, proving that it was entirely possible to hack a smart health connected watch using these two methods.

(Embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utVnrq5uCuM (/ embed) 

To prevent possible attacks, theNFC technology remains the recommended alternative for data transmission between the smartwatch and the smartphone. Near Field Communication, which is used when you want to use your phone as a payment method, requires two devices to be very close to each other to exchange information and therefore increases the security of the devices.

We must not let go of everything, go live in a cave on the other side of the world and howl to the devil in the presence of smart health connected objects. However vigilance is required on the side of both users and manufacturers which, with the democratization of these devices, have the mission to make them reliable and as safe as possible.

[ad_2]