by Angela Guess

According to a recent press release, “More than 90 percent of IT security professionals said that connected devices will be a major security issue this year. However, 66% aren’t sure how many devices are in their environment, according to new research from Pwnie Express. The Internet of Evil Things® (IoET®) report released today found a common point-of-view among IT leaders – the Internet of Things (IoT) is introducing significant risk to companies today, but security programs are not keeping pace. IT pros understand the dangers facing their companies, but don’t have the necessary solutions [AB1] to address these new threats, including IoT malware, like Mirai. Last fall, Mirai was used to arm hundreds of thousands of webcams to attack the Internet infrastructure company Dyn.  The result? A near shutdown of the internet for millions of Americans trying to get to their favorite websites.”

The release goes on, “Mirai made headlines globally and 84 percent of those surveyed admitted that Mirai changed their perception about threats from IoT devices. Yet, over 65 percent said they either haven’t checked or don’t know how to check their connected devices for Mirai. With Mirai and its inspired offshoots in the wild, determined attackers see the potential to use vulnerable connected devices for nefarious large-scale purposes and to target and compromise specific networks and companies. Key report findings include: One in five of the survey respondents (20%) said their IoT devices were hit with ransomware attacks last year. 16% of respondents say they experienced Man-in-the-middle attacks through IoT devices. Devices continue to lend themselves to problematic configurations. The default network from common routers ‘linksys’ and ‘Netgear’ were two of the top 10 most common ‘open default’ wireless SSID’s (named networks), and the hotspot network built-in for the configuration and setup of HP printers – ‘hpsetup’- is #2.”

Read more at PR Newswire.

Photo credit: Pwnie Express