[photo/breakbulk.com]In the most recent years, internet safety companies made forecasts about possible cyber-threats to really worry about this year.
Paramount among these was the need for the proactive use of protective software tools as well as sensitization and training of users about these threats.
True to predictions, 2018 started with a scenario hardly anyone could have foreseen.
CPUs of affected manufacturers such as AMD, ARM, Intel, among others appear in a lot of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and which are scattered all over the globe.
Conferring to ARM, they are already “safeguarding” a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) devices.
Actuality people will keep their existing devices until the end of their life cycles, for years even.
Any Wi-Fi-controlled device such as refrigerator, digital picture frames, Smart TVs, DVRs and PVRs etc., potentially provides an opportunity for sensitive data to be lost. For example, a compromised Wi-Fi password for any of these can make it possible for anyone to hack your home or office network thus giving automatic access to any other connected platform such as emails, social media pages and even shared cloud or archive platforms.
Even though to get access to your IoT device, a would-be attacker needs to have compromised the internet network already, or even the applications running on the device, we know that cyber-criminals just like a pack of wolves will not relent after smelling blood.
As a mitigating measure, before buying a new IoT device, ensure to check which CPU it is running on and if that CPU is affected by these susceptibilities.