Elain Brown Tech 04.26.2022 08:Apr AM EDT

Crime Grows With Technology as 1 Billion IoT Devices Suffered Attacks in 2021

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been integrated to become part of day-to-day living in this modern age. IoT has become widely popular and its usage has grown swiftly.

Over the past few years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of smart devices that are part of the expanding Internet of Things scope, including security cameras, gaming platforms, televisions, appliances, doorbells, computers, and many more.

As smart devices become more prevalent, hackers and other threat groups are becoming increasingly attracted to them. The unfortunate reality is that these devices are increasingly being used as an instrument for exploitation, used against both individuals and businesses.

According to a new report by Sam by SAM Seamless Network, more than a billion Internet of Things devices were hacked last year. As everything becomes more interconnected to one another, it is expected that the number of attacks will increase significantly.

IoT-based Attacks

The exponential increase in the use of Internet of Things devices has not gone unnoticed by organized hackers. IoT devices have been getting attention for several years now, as their use in a variety of industries, including industrial, municipal, and consumer, has grown at an alarming rate.

According to a new report by SAM Seamless Network, more than one billion attacks took place in 2021, with more than 900 million of those being related to the Internet of Things. The IoT-related attacks on 900 million people pose a great threat to cybersecurity for all internet users.

In 2021, there was more than 1 billion Internet of Things attacks, with nearly 900 million of those being phishing attacks targeting IoT devices.

Attacks on IoT devices were made possible by minimal security and incorrectly configured settings, which allowed for the vast majority of cyberattacks to be successful. The report claims that there is a general lack of understanding about security and its importance in the Internet of Things ecosystem, particularly among consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. Furthermore, there is significantly greater variety in terms of operating systems and their versions.

There is a consequent fragmentation of the system, which makes it difficult to compile and deploy security updates. In many cases, Internet of Things devices does not even receive regular security updates, if they do at all.

Another reason for the increased number of compromised IoT devices is that of more advanced and sophisticated bots and threat actors that are swift in looking for weak and vulnerable devices to exploit.

As per Neowin, since 2016, the Mirai and Mozi botnets, in particular, have been targeting Internet of Things devices and home routers. These web crawling malware programs are constantly evolving and becoming more powerful. They're also getting better at avoiding detection as time goes on.

Commonly Breached Devices in the IoT

IoT devices have been affected by DDoS attacks, brute force attacks, phishing, and DPI policy-based attacks, which are among the most notable and common types of attacks.

According to VentureBeat, a recent report stated that 50% of home and small business networks have experienced a breach or suspicious network traffic behavior.

Another surprising vulnerable device that almost all households have are the attacks on internet routers; they end up being the most vulnerable to network attacks. Home routers were the most frequently targeted pieces of hardware.

As per the report, small routers, which are particularly common in homes, coffee shops, and other non-industrial settings, are becoming increasingly vulnerable to attacks. In the report, routers accounted for 46% of IoT attacks.

Aside from routers, these are also the commonly weak network points for cyberattacks: Wi-Fi extenders and mesh internet routers (17%), Internet Access Points (AP) (17%), NAS (Network Attached Storage) (5%), VoIP, internet-connected cameras (3%), and other small smart home devices (3%).