Hacking the Internet of things

• The dark,deep world of hacking is ever evolving, much faster than IT security specialists can devise ways to defeat the hackers. Of course most notably in recent times the ubiquitous smartphone has come under fire from the pirates of the net. Knox, Kaspersky and others are all out there to stop these guys getting into your phone. But how secure are your  linen table skirts from hackers?

There's actually some meaning behind that seemingly random question,believe it or not. As the Internet of things catches on and Nest and other gadgets become a household name ,new windows of insecurity are opening. Quite recently two things stand out in the technology hews for those interested in that type of thing. The recent Target takedown has being linked to a point of sale hack, which apparently are more common than we'd like to think. A POS is certainly an Internet of things device from a commerce standpoint,but where is the protection. Wily hackers know that if something that can link to the Internet it is fair game to be hacked and could be profitable. An even crazier recent hack linked to a massive botnet takedown saw that a percentage of spam sent by the botnet was unbelievably sent by Internet of things devices,including some fridges!