All those who are using Fitness trackers, smartphones and voice-activated gadgets such as Amazon Echo, here’s some bad news for you. The National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) and the National Crime Agency (NCA) of UK have generated a report which states that hackers are targeting people using the above said sophisticated gadgets to hold people to ransom or defraud them.
Security researchers from the said agencies are warning users that cyber crooks can take hold of private info and could use them to impersonate victims and empty their bank accounts, seize their assets and even remortgage their homes.
As the demand for IoT devices is picking up, security researchers are worried that this could open doors to aggressive and confrontational hackers.
A study forecasts that this year, ransomware will target connected devices holding data such as photos, emails and even info about the owner’s fitness levels.
Although the probability of the data being sold to dark net forums is very low, holding the data and device for ransom could trigger panic among victims who could be willing to pay for it.
Analysts forecast that by 2020, there will be as many as 21 billion connected devices used by businesses and consumers around the world.
Spy agencies operating around the world are well aware of this fact, and so have warned all those using Internet of Things against the upcoming threat.
Ciaran Martin, the head of NCSC- an operational unit of GCHQ, London has issued a statement in which he said that cyber attacks will continue to evolve on public and private sectors. Martin added that attackers will show more interest in gaining personal info of individuals by breaking into their gadgets and tools such as Amazon echo and fitness trackers and will start holding data such as video recordings, fitness secrets for ransom.
Imagine what if the hacker learns that you have locked your home through Amazon echo and are on a vacation. What if he/she uses your old video recordings (voice instructions) to unlock your house and initiate a burglary?
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