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Hundreds of smart homes in India at risk of leaking data: Avast
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SME Times News Bureau | 17 Aug, 2018
Hundreds of smart homes and businesses in India are at risk of leaking
data due to misconfiguration of a protocol used to interconnect and
control smart home devices via smart home hubs, warns new research from
global cybersecurity company Avast.
The researchers found more
than 49,000 Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) servers publicly
visible on the Internet due to a misconfigured MQTT protocol.
This
includes more than 32,000 servers -- 595 from India -- with no password
protection, putting them at risk of leaking data, said the report on
Friday.
"It is frighteningly easy to gain access and control of a
person's smart home, because there are still many poorly secured
protocols dating back to bygone technology eras when security was not a
top concern," said Martin Hron, security researcher at Avast.
"Consumers
need to be aware of the security concerns of connecting devices that
control intimate parts of their home to services they don't fully
understand and the importance of properly configuring their devices,"
Hron said.
When implementing the MQTT protocol, users set up a
server. In the case of consumers, the server usually lives on a PC or
some mini-computer such as Raspberry Pi, to which devices can connect to
and communicate with. While the MQTT protocol itself is secure, severe security issues can arise if MQTT is incorrectly implemented and configured.
Cybercriminals
could gain complete access to a home to learn when their owners are
home, manipulate entertainment systems, voice assistants and household
devices, and see if smart doors and windows are opened or closed.
Under
certain conditions cybercriminals can even track a user's whereabouts
which can be a serious privacy and security threat, the report said.
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