Peter A Clarke

There has been a flurry of stories relating to the internet of things and lack of data security, to wit businesses being hacked through access points existing courtesy of connected devices.  In the UK dozens of British Heating systems have been found to be vulnerable to hacking.  In that case the installation of the devices were undertaken by those who were not familiar with cyber security.  Meanwhile an interesting article by the BBC, Lock out: The Austrian hotel that was hacked four times, highlights that there were 6.4 billion smart devices in 2016 but that was predicted to rise to 21 billion devices in 2020.  The opportunities for hackers to exploit weaknesses are huge.  For example a US casinos smart fish tank was hacked earlier this year so as to obtain data from the Casino’s system.   The UK  Information Commissioner has published an article warning of buying smart toys and devices.  This sort of issue was in the realm of science fiction 20 years ago and barely contemplated a decade later.  Now it is a very real problem with a hacker reportedly using a LG Robot Hoover into a device to monitor homes and sex toys being hacked.