Another story about using default passwords with little gadgets.
This time it’s beating up on Nest, but this also applies to anything that attaches to the Internet. It doesn’t matter if it’s Alexa, Nest, your sound system, apps in your TV, your door locks, or anything that goes out to the Internet.
If the Internet sees it so do hackers. One of the ways to know it your gadget goes out to the Internet is if there’s an app for it, then it’s on the Internet and completely exposed to being hacked.
All defaults passwords for everything can be looked up in seconds.
A hacker than makes a robot that looks for the devices and tries the default password. It very simple to do. A whole city can be explored in less than an hour. Once they get into your network they continue to poke around. Learn about you and who you connect to. They don’t always infect you with a virus but the will try to figure out how to exploit you.
If they get into your phone or computer then they can:
- Hack the camera and audio
- Put traps that record your keystrokes
- Learn your email contacts
- Then they attack your contacts
Although it not common to get hacked this way.
It’s becoming more common because it is so simple to execute. I’m not saying don’t use gadgets. Just make it harder for the hackers and keep them from accessing your network by changing the default passwords. Make the password different and random from each other. Without a common thread and not password1, password2.
A number and symbol substitution doesn’t stop anyone.
So, B@53b@11! (Baseball!) will not stop anyone. A password cracker would crack it in 1 second. Most default passwords are 1234567, a word like baseball, or password. The more credit and money you have the more vulnerable you are to being hacker.
Not changing your password is like leaving your keys in your car. I remember a time when people did leave keys in their car, yes it was the 70’s. Eventually we all had to stop doing it, because the cars kept getting stolen. Don’t make it so easy on the hackers to steal your identity.