The front line of computer hacking may have moved to the kitchen. Hundreds of thousands of spam emails have been sent by an internet-connected fridge, as well as TVs and home entertainment centres in recent weeks, in a stark insight into the cybersecurity risks of “the internet of things”.
More than 750,000 malicious emails were sent from over 100,000 so-called smart devices over the holiday period, according to researchers at Proofpoint Security, a Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity company.
Botnets, notorious for taking over desktop computers and laptops, are now turning their attention to a new range of devices to harness their computing power to send rogue emails, as they are often not well protected from hackers.