Shocking of IoT

Internet of thing make life become very efficient to households. Which explain why many Australian householders are gaining access to it. Internet of things mean any devices that are connected to the Internet such as fridges, window blinds, locks, computers.

Besides all the positive results which Internet of thing can give us. Do we really think there will not be any risk exposures that we might face?

Using GPS in a smart phones, users can get spy without them even knowing and even if the location has been switch off. Researchers from Northeastern University in Boston said  in conducting to their test they were able to track people driving through Boston, Waltham, Massachusetts, and London. Traditional locators, like GPS were turned off so the researchers used other sensors (Schlesinger, 2018).

Furthermore, users can be hacked through their social media account. A former software engineer at Yahoo Ruiz found guilty on hacking thousands of accounts to hunt for sexual images and videos, which he currently facing serious consequences. Ruiz admitted to taking advantage of his work at Yahoo to access the personal accounts of about 6,000 users that are younger women, his personal friends and work colleagues. He used hacked Yahoo accounts to access Facebook, Gmail, iCloud, DropBox, and online services of the victims in search for their private and personal records and stored them in a hard drive in his home.

Australian Privacy Act has significant limitations in protecting consumers, as the definition of “personal information” is very narrow. The Act doesn’t even apply to many Australian companies, as they do not meet thresholds such as having A$3 million in annual turnover. This show IoT users are very vulnerable and they need to be extra cautious when using the devices as they might not be covered by the Australian law.