Expert ADVICE
Security, Network Attacks and Prevention
LEONARD PASCUAL A Sound Look 502 Cerrillos Road 505.983.5509 ASoundLook.com
T
he integration of network devices allows for marvelous amounts of information, such as who is coming up to the door of your home, if pipes in your house are starting to freeze, or if there’s a water leak in your home. Homeowners are increasingly using hardware for these tasks. The problem is security of the devices in your network and the hardware. In September, the security website KrebsOnSecurity was hit with the then-largest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. A network of compromised computers is a botnet, and the devices in the botnet are called zombies. The software for the Krebs attack used a particular malware code, known as Mirai, which scans the internet looking for vulnerable devices that have default settings. The terrifying part of these particular attacks? The instructions for launching an attack of this nature could have been obtained online. The other terrifying part? It used millions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which means
anything connected to the internet could potentially become a zombie. This means your television, smart watch, home assistant, coffee machine or anything else connected to the internet could have been used as part of the attack. Commonly used sites were affected: Twitter, Paypal, Amazon and Netflix to name a few. A few of the brands which helped accomplish the attack included Axis cameras, H.264 DVR cameras (multiple brands), Panasonic printers, Realtek routers, Samsung Cameras, Toshiba cameras, Ubiquiti Air routers, Vivotek cameras, Xerox printers and ZTE routers. This is just a sampling of the major brands affected. Additionally, these brands and manufacturers also make devices for others, so it’s ultimately impossible to know exactly which products are susceptible. Unfortunately, people often setup their devices and then forget about them. Typically, we don’t pay much attention to
adding and updating anti-virus software, so it is very difficult to clean up and detect devices that are part of the botnet. Worse is expected, as hackers are selling access to a huge army of hacked Internet of Things (IoT) devices designed to launch attacks capable of severely disrupting web connections. The increased number of devices on the internet will make future attacks worse. Homeowners are relying on companies such as A Sound Look for network security against such attacks. Do it yourself (DIY) types can attempt to install devices, but must do research on the benefits or problems with the products they use. On a daily basis, A Sound Look explores and tests almost all products under its service umbrella. None of the products installed by A Sound Look were affected by this recent attack. A Sound Look is here to serve your needs whenever you require solutions for your commercial and residential networks.