We live in an era where privacy is an ongoing struggle that only seems to get more difficult. The majority of the public do take the usual precautions to protect their sensitive materials, such as alarm systems, and encrypted passwords. However, new technology is pushing the bar even further and you may be very surprised what some of the latest hacking efforts have come up with in the United States.
One of the more disturbing stories as of late comes from a 34 year old from Houston, Texas, Marc Gilbert. Marc was given among the worst birthday surprises possible at his home during the evening of his last birthday party. As it got late and people began to empty out of the home, Marc heard an unfamiliar voice coming out of his 2 year old daughter’s room as she slept. He walked in to hear the words, “Wake up, you little slut.” He quickly discovered these horrible words were coming out of the baby monitor! A hacker was able to take control of the audio feed as well as the camera in the room. Marc instantly unplugged everything to kill the feed as the hacker insulted him.
It’s not certain how the hacker accessed the monitor in this case, but there’s a good chance he used the search engine tool Shodan. Similar to the way Google searches for websites, Shodan searches the internet for electronics connected to a network. This popular hacker-friendly search engine has found cars, fetal heart monitors, office building heating-control systems, water treatment facilities, power plant controls, traffic lights and glucose meters.
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A simple search for the previously mentioned baby monitor revealed that over 40,000 other monitors are currently in use, leaving the door open for future hackers. The creator of Shodan originally thought it would be used by large corporations like Cisco or Microsoft to canvas the industry for competitors’ products. However, in reality the search tool has become critical for security researchers, academics, law enforcement and hackers looking for devices that shouldn’t be on the Internet or devices that are vulnerable to being hacked. In the past, Shodan has been used to assist in finding webcams with very limited security, where you only need IP address to peer into people’s homes, security offices, child care centers, hospital operating rooms and drug dealer operations.
While a free search will provide you ten results on Shodan, approximately 10,000 people purchase a subscription of up to $20 to get 10,000 results per search. About a dozen cyber-security firms pay five figures annually for instant access to Shodan’s entire database of 1.5 billion connected devices.
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In 2012, an anonymous user hacked into over 400,000 Internet-enabled electronic devices using just four default passwords. He used the devices to develop a data set similar to Shodan, and named it the Internet Census 2012. This shows that Shodan is probably only the start of a new wave of internet spying. From the creator’s perspective, he hopes Shodan will lead to greater transparency and awareness of companies that are selling vulnerable systems. According to the European technology company Ericsson, about 50 billion devices will be networked by 2020. That's an enormous amount of electronics that can be infiltrated without the proper security.
Going forward, simply be aware of these types of threats that crop up as technology continues to become more powerful and complex. Make sure your networks are secure before you trust any electronics operating on them.
