The Terrifying Search Engine That Finds Internet-Connected Cameras, Traffic Lights, Medical Devices, Baby Monitors And Power Plants
Matherly originally thought Shodan would be used by network behemoths like Cisco, Juniper or Microsoft Microsoft to canvas the world for their competitors’ products. Instead, it’s become a crucial tool for security researchers, academics, law enforcement and hackers looking for devices that shouldn’t be on the Internet or devices that are vulnerable to being hacked. An industry report from Swedish tech company Ericsson Ericsson estimates that 50 billion devices will be networked by 2020 into an “Internet of Things.” Matherly’s the only one putting the results of the surveying into a public search engine. “I don’t consider my search engine scary,” says Matherly. “It’s scary that there are power plants connected to the Internet.”
Shodan’s been used to find webcams with security so low that you only needed to type an IP address into your browser to peer into people’s homes, security offices, hospital operating rooms, child care centers and drug dealer operations. Dan Tentler, a security researcher who has consulted for Twitter, built a program called Eagleeye that finds webcams via Shodan, accesses them and takes screenshots. He has documented almost a million exposed webcams. “It’s like crack for voyeurs,” he says.
Source
Matherly originally thought Shodan would be used by network behemoths like Cisco, Juniper or Microsoft Microsoft to canvas the world for their competitors’ products. Instead, it’s become a crucial tool for security researchers, academics, law enforcement and hackers looking for devices that shouldn’t be on the Internet or devices that are vulnerable to being hacked. An industry report from Swedish tech company Ericsson Ericsson estimates that 50 billion devices will be networked by 2020 into an “Internet of Things.” Matherly’s the only one putting the results of the surveying into a public search engine. “I don’t consider my search engine scary,” says Matherly. “It’s scary that there are power plants connected to the Internet.”
Shodan’s been used to find webcams with security so low that you only needed to type an IP address into your browser to peer into people’s homes, security offices, hospital operating rooms, child care centers and drug dealer operations. Dan Tentler, a security researcher who has consulted for Twitter, built a program called Eagleeye that finds webcams via Shodan, accesses them and takes screenshots. He has documented almost a million exposed webcams. “It’s like crack for voyeurs,” he says.
Source
