The numbers of IoT cyberattacks continue to pile up at an alarming rate. Recently, officials from Microsoft issued a warning about a new group of hackers who are using IoT devices to infiltrate targeted computer networks. This group is thought to be an operative of the Russian government. These attacks were first discovered in April when office printers, voice-over-IP phones, and video decoders in several customer locations were found to be communicating with servers belonging to the group, known as Strontium, Fancy Bear, or APT28. The story that follows describes in detail what happened, and what enterprises can do to help in stemming these types of attacks.
Cyberattacks on IoT devices surged 300% this year. Over 2.9 billion events were observed by one security provider’s global network of honeypots in first half of 2019. It was the first time the provider had ever measured billions of attacks occurring over a 6-month period.
While the attacks come from many sources, last month, Microsoft identified a remarkably large and coordinated effort.
