Shodan and the Internet of Things
by Miki Saxon
Over the holiday weekend “Eric” canceled his email subscription and the reason given made me smile.
He said my post about the potential for hacking the “Internet of Things” was more fear-mongering than fact, so he was, as I always recommend, “voting with his feet” and unsubscribing.
Granted, I should have referenced my proof, but it’s hard to remember every article I read and this one dates back 15 months.
It’s an article about a search engine called Shodan — the Internet of Things’ worst nightmare.
Shodan crawls the Internet looking for devices, many of which are programmed to answer. It has found cars, fetal heart monitors, office building heating-control systems, water treatment facilities, power plant controls, traffic lights and glucose meters. (…) “Google crawls for websites. I crawl for devices,” says John Matherly, the tall, goateed 29-year-old who released Shodan in 2009.
Shodan wasn’t built for nefarious purposes, but intent has very little to do with actual usage.
Currently, Shodan is the only device search engine with public search results, which is, obviously, a boon to hackers.
However, I agree with Matherly, because if he hadn’t built it someone else would have.
“I don’t consider my search engine scary. It’s scary that there are power plants connected to the Internet.”
And, in case you are wondering, yes, I sent the article URL to Eric.
Flickr image credit: centralasian
January 13th, 2015 at 11:31 am
[…] manner of things to the internet, even contraceptives and cars, and inventing search engines like Shodan to find them, with nary a thought or worry about […]