A recent report from security firm Proofpoint saying "Internet connected Refrigerators are participating in massive cyber attack" is one of the hot topic on Information Security.
The report said that a massive global cyber attack involved more than 750k malicious emails relied on more than 100k consumer gadgets such as routers, multimedia systems, tvs and refrigerator.
However, a recent report form Symantec says "Internet of Things" devices including the Internet-connected fridge are not source of this spam campaign.
Symantec confirmed the source of spam as several windows-based computers, and none of them were originated from any non-windows based computer systems.
"if your refrigerator uses a feature known as port forwarding and someone contacts the IP address on port 80, that traffic is allowed to reach your smart refrigerator."Symantec report reads.
"Viewed from outside, all you will see is the refrigerator and you may not even realize there is a router with potentially many other devices behind it, such as an infected computer." Symantec experts explained that it might be the reason why researchers mistakenly considered the IoT devices as source for the spam campaign.
Even though the IoT devices such as fridge are innocent at this time, experts say that we can expect them to be exploited by cyber criminals in future. Researchers also pointed out that there is already few malware targeting Linux-based IoT devices.
The report said that a massive global cyber attack involved more than 750k malicious emails relied on more than 100k consumer gadgets such as routers, multimedia systems, tvs and refrigerator.
However, a recent report form Symantec says "Internet of Things" devices including the Internet-connected fridge are not source of this spam campaign.
Symantec confirmed the source of spam as several windows-based computers, and none of them were originated from any non-windows based computer systems.
"if your refrigerator uses a feature known as port forwarding and someone contacts the IP address on port 80, that traffic is allowed to reach your smart refrigerator."Symantec report reads.
"Viewed from outside, all you will see is the refrigerator and you may not even realize there is a router with potentially many other devices behind it, such as an infected computer." Symantec experts explained that it might be the reason why researchers mistakenly considered the IoT devices as source for the spam campaign.
Even though the IoT devices such as fridge are innocent at this time, experts say that we can expect them to be exploited by cyber criminals in future. Researchers also pointed out that there is already few malware targeting Linux-based IoT devices.
