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Page 124 - Cyber Safety C-8
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    21 st   #Critical Thinking
                                                                                              Century
                                                                                               Skills  #Information Literacy
                                                           THE SMART HOME HACK
                        Akash’s  family  recently  upgraded  their  home  using smart  LED bulbs,  a smart  speaker  and a
                        Wi-Fi–connected automation hub. Everything worked smoothly, so they never changed the default
                        passwords, assuming, “Who would hack our lights?”

                        Meanwhile, Vishal, a tech-savvy student  experimenting  with  IoT vulnerabilities,  used  a device-
                        scanning tool to  search for nearby  networks  with weak  security.  Within  minutes,  he detected
                        several unprotected IoT devices inside Akash’s home network. Because the default passwords were
                        unchanged, he easily accessed the smart-light hub and later moved into the smart speaker, since
                        both were connected to the same router.

                        Soon, strange things began happening:

                            The lights flickered at random times.

                            The smart speaker woke up even without using the wake word.

                             Akash’s father checked the device app and noticed microphone activity logs during hours when
                            nobody was at home.

                            The automation hub also displayed login attempts from an unknown device ID.

                        When the service provider investigated, they confirmed that multiple IoT devices had been accessed
                        and attempts were made to link them, behaviour commonly seen in botnet-style attacks, which are
                        expected to grow further as 5G-powered IoT devices increase.

                        Akash’s family finally realised that their simple, everyday smart gadgets had been misused to listen,
                        monitor and possibly attack other networks.

                        Based on the above case, answer the following questions:

                        1.  What unusual behaviour made the family suspicious about the smart speaker?

                        2.   Why is it dangerous when a hacker can control or link multiple IoT devices together?

                       122  Computer Science - VIII

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