While the Internet of Things is touted for facilitating all sorts of life-changing services, there's been an undercurrent of anxiety among the more security conscious IT pros. Their concern: All those smart devices, oftentimes built with default passwords and otherwise poor protection, could put networks and users at risk. Now it's clear those fears were warranted.

Recent events have put the spotlight on IoT security – or to be more precise, IoT insecurity. Malware has surfaced that allows attackers to create botnets from vulnerable IoT devices and launch distributed denial-of-service attacks. For example, Mirai was used in last month's high-profile DDoS attack on the KrebsOnSecurity website.

In September, Symantec reported that cybercriminals are taking advantage of poor IoT security to hijack home networks and consumer devices and carry out DDoS attacks, most often against large companies.

See the full article here on Network Computing.