According to a recent report published by the
Aargauer Zeitung (h/t
Golem.de), around three million smart toothbrushes have been infected by hackers and enslaved into botnets. The source report says this sizable army of connected dental cleansing tools was used in a DDoS attack on a Swiss company’s website. The firm’s site collapsed under the strain of the attack, reportedly resulting in the loss of millions of Euros of business.
In this particular case, the toothbrush botnet was thought to have been vulnerable due to its Java-based OS. No particular toothbrush brand was mentioned in the source report. Normally, the toothbrushes would have used their connectivity for tracking and improving user oral hygiene habits, but after a malware infection, these toothbrushes were press-ganged into a botnet.
Stefan Züger from the Swiss branch of the global cybersecurity firm
Fortinet provided the publication with a few tips on what people could do to protect their own toothbrushes – or other connected gadgetry like
routers, set-top boxes, surveillance cameras, doorbells, baby monitors,
washing machines, and so on.
www.tomshardware.com
