Smart homes open doors to hackers

Aamir Lakhani hacks into a video stream in Saudi Arabia with ease sitting 8,100 miles away in California. Lakhani, a security researcher at Fortinet, accomplished the hack without any coding skills, though he has those in spades. He merely logged on to Shodan.io, a website where anyone can find a huge trove of Internet-connected devices, from baby monitors to cars, cameras and even traffic lights.

He calls the site the “search engine for the Internet of Things”, and it allows him to hack into the video stream, picked at random, just by entering word “admin” for the camera’s username and password.

That is the flip side to the promise of the Internet of Things, which is shorthand for the notion that anything and everything will be connected over the Internet. Billions of sensors will soon be built into appliances, security systems, health monitors, door locks, cars and city streets to help manage energy use, control traffic, monitor air quality and even warn physicians when a patient is about to have a stroke. The revolution has already started.

Market forecaster Gartner expects 6.4 billion connected devices will find their way into our lives in 2016.

So, what could all these connected devices possibly lead to? Mayhem, according to Tanuj Mohan, executive and co-founder at connected lighting company Enlighted. “Things are designed to be used by humans and not computers,” Mohan said.

When computers hold the reins, criminals can grab control in unexpected ways. That connected coffee maker in the office — it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for a hacker to put it into a continuous loop and brew coffee throughout the weekend, flooding the office, he said.

Mohan’s company monitors lighting systems in large commercial buildings to help his customers improve energy efficiency. Enlighted also makes sure intruders don’t take control of the lighting.

“If I turned them on and off 10 times per second on Sunday, none of the fixtures would work on Monday,” Mohan said.

Mayhem could hit at home, too. Tech-savvy thieves could look at the settings of your connected thermostat, lighting and security system to figure out you’re away on vacation.