Swiss cyber attack involved the use of millions of hacked toothbrushes (1)

Alright, mate, have you heard about this bonkers news? Hackers have gone a step further now, they’re not just in our computers anymore, no, they’ve managed to make their way into our bathrooms as well. That’s right. Your toothbrush might just be their new favourite playground.

Word on the street is millions of these smart toothbrushes – the ones that are connected to the internet, you know – they’ve all been infected. Sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? But hold on, it gets even more interesting. So, this army of possessed toothbrushes acted like a botnet and orchestrated a major cyber attack against a Swiss company.

I bet you’re thinking, “bot-what?” Let me explain. A botnet is a group of devices connected to the internet, all compromised by malware and controlled by cybercriminals, without the actual device owners having a single clue about it. They’re just quietly brushing their teeth, oblivious to the chaos their toothbrush is helping create in the cyber world. Quite the world we’re living in, eh?

So, what’s the idea behind this strange scheme? A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, that’s what. You’ve probably encountered this term before if you’re intrigued by all things cybersecurity. This kind of attack essentially chokes websites and servers with loads of web traffic they can’t handle. It’s like thousands of people trying to walk through a small door all at once. The result? The website or server can’t cope with the pressure and collapses, or in technological terms, goes offline.

In this instance, the Swiss firm was left high and dry. Their website was out of function because of this cyberattack all the way from our humble toothbrushes. I heard about it from the Aargauer Zeitung newspaper, the chaps who broke the news first.

Of course, typical of such outrageous news, the online world is buzzing. Like me, many folks think this sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi script, right? Some are sceptical about whether it’s a real incident or just a brilliant plot for a Hollywood movie.

I was checking infosec.exchange the other day and found a bloke that cracked me up. He said he woke up not expecting to scratch “botnet of smart toothbrushes” off his Cyberattack Bingo card that day. Funny chap.

So, that’s the long and short of it. The tech world never fails to throw up surprises, does it? One moment we’re connecting toothbrushes to the internet for a cool brushing experience, the next they’re part of a cybercrime. Just another day in the cyber world, I guess.

by Parker Bytes