The Internet of Things is close to the top of this year’s “Top Trends” list, and there are certainly big benefits to having more of our electronic devices online. With the huge address space provided by IPv6, it becomes not just possible but fairly easy to accomplish. But it also means that all those “things” can become attack vectors, and the fridge in the break room might offer hackers a “back door” into your network if you (or the appliance installer) haven’t configured things properly.
It’s already begun, with a recently discovered botnet that has infected thousands of home gadgets to send spam:
http://www.popsci.com/article/gadgets/somebody-hacked-fridge-send-spam?dom=tw&src=SOC
