Internet-connected household devices are helping criminals across the world to spy on you. Yes, a recent study carried out by Professor at Surrey University discovered proved it in practice where criminals are found exploiting the data more than our expectations.
Professor Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at Surrey University carried out a study in which he discovered that criminals have nowadays stopped hacking something protected such as laptops. And have started putting their hard work into hacking more easy and flexible appliances like smart TVs, fridge, and toaster i.e. anything and everything which is connected to the internet.
And the professor concludes that by the year 2025 there will be more than 75 billion internet connected devices taking the cyber threat quotient to many folds.
Professor Alan showed the images and video footage grabbed from a Russian website as an example to his quotes. The website is said to be streaming live videos from nanny cams, webcams, CCTV, smartphones, and other such smart devices like Amazon Echo from past two years and has been spying mostly on victims hailing from the UK, Canada, and the USA.
The Surrey University professor’s intention in disclosing the details of his study was to wake up the world on how hackers/spies are invading the living rooms and bedrooms of innocent victims just by exploiting the technical vulnerabilities of their internet connected devices.
And as house owners are showing a lot of interest in building 21st-century houses enriched with technology, the privacy concerns are mounting on a stupendous note.
Endorsing this as a fact, a survey conducted by security researchers from SureCloud confirmed that out of every 15 connected devices 8 were vulnerable to hacking.
Dr. Jason Nurse, a cyber security expert from Oxford University says crooks could make the devices record all the time without the knowledge of the owners. Speaking at Cheltenham Science Festival, Dr. Nurse said that hackers can hear anyone buying something on the phone and can easily get their credit card details.
A Russian website which keeps a directory of security surveillance cameras operating around the world has been broadcasting webcam footage that includes everything from a couple having love time on the bed to children sleeping and who are alone at home.
Now to those who want to know the way out, here’s a piece of advice from Professor Woodward- Just change the default logins of your connected devices and if possible, put a sticky tape over cameras and microphones to prevent them recording what you are doing in leisure time.
Probably these two are the only low-tech solutions for the said high-tech problems in the professor’s point of view.
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