Page 124 - Cyber Safety C-8

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