This Month In Things: April 2017
This Month In Things is a series we created to give you a quick round-up of exciting and interesting happenings in the IoT world.
If videos aren’t your thing, we have the text version below.
Samsung’s Android Replacement Is a Hacker’s Dream
A security researcher decided to do a review on Samsung’s Tizen operating system. After the review, the researcher found 40 vulnerabilities that were unknown to Samsung. While taking a look at the code, he found that all data was not being encrypted in transit, and some vulnerabilities even allowed remote updates. The researcher described the code as “It may be the worst code I’ve ever seen.”
Consumers Starting To Buy More Through Voice Assistants
Would you ever use your Google Home or Alexa to make a purchase? BI Intelligence did a study of 950 individuals. Here is what they found out about the people who used voice assistants:
- 9% of them have made purchases by voice
- 2% have used voice to pay a bill
- 1% used voice to send money.
Rash of In-The-Wild Attacks Permanently Destroys Poorly Secured IoT Devices
It looks like a bot vigilante is moving around the web. Researchers found two bots, named BrickerBot 1 and 2, looking for vulnerable, connected devices and taking them entirely offline before they can join other botnets to be used to take down websites.
The BrickerBot looks for open devices with default passwords, once found, it tries to delete all files and remove networking capabilities, which completely bricks the device. Hopefully, this encourages people to change their passwords.
IoT Garage Door Opener Maker Bricks Customer’s Product after Bad Review
Speaking of bricked devices, the maker of a garage door opener bricked a customer’s device on purpose. The maker refused service after a customer was rude, posting comments such as:
Junk — DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY — iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.
The customer didn’t give ample time to receive help before posting multiple comments. So, the owner decided that this customer was not worth having.
Using the Internet of Things to Reduce Food Waste
The USDA estimates that we waste about 30% of all food, which equates to about $161 billion. Trying to keep food, like fruit, at the just the right temperature in transit is very hard. To combat this problem, Switzerland’s Federal Laboratories designed a 3D printed sensor that is placed in shipment and looks just like the fruit.
Swedish Employees Agree to Free Microchip Implants Designed for Office Work
150 employees of a Swedish company, called Epicenter, decided to allow the company to implant an RFID tag into their hand. Using this, the employees could open doors, and gain access to tools with the company. With this tech, the company could even track employee location, work hours, and even toilet breaks.
That’s all for this month! Until next time, Stay Connected 😉
This Month in Things is brought to you by Losant. Losant is an easy-to-use and powerful Internet of Things platform designed to help you quickly and securely build complex connected solutions.
