New ideas come to hackers’ minds: Be careful, electric toothbrushes are attacking!

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What sounds like a bad sci-fi movie is unfortunately a harsh reality: Hackers aren’t even content with electric toothbrushes to carry out their shady business.

“Every device that connects to the Internet is a potential target or can be misused for an attack,” Stefan Zuger from IT security company Fortinet tells “CH-Media”.

The device is usually not the primary target; It is often used for what is called a DDoS attack. For example, a company’s website is accessed simultaneously by countless hacked devices until it crashes.

Hackers typically use computers and cell phones for this purpose, but baby monitors, webcams and electric toothbrushes can also serve this purpose.

Three million toothbrushes

Here’s how it works: There are apps for modern electric toothbrushes that allow users to see how well they’re brushing their teeth. Toothbrushes connect to a mobile phone via Bluetooth; new models can go online directly via WLAN.

If these connections are not secure, hackers can install malware on the toothbrush and command it to access a specific website.

But if three million toothbrushes did this at the same time, the targeted website would crash and be paralyzed for several hours. While we unsuspectingly brush off our biters, the damage quickly adds up to millions. According to Fortinet’s Stefan Zuger, this is exactly what happened to a Swiss company.

Protect everything or you will be a victim

Hacking is a booming business. The Federal Office for Cybersecurity (BASC) reported almost 50,000 cyber incidents last year; That’s 43 percent more than the previous year! Fortinet records 100 to 200 billion incidents or attack points worldwide every day.

Zuger and his team also recently conducted an experiment. They connected a computer to the internet without any protection. Less than 20 minutes later he was infected.

According to Zuger, everything needs to be protected: “Otherwise, sooner or later you will become a victim or your own device will be misused for attacks.” This raises the question of whether there will soon be virus protection programs for electric toothbrushes. (kae)

Source :Blick