What we can learn from Silex: the Malware that is rendering thousands of IoT devices unusable

Silex is a powerful piece of malware that was created by a 14-year-old boy as a joke and has become a personal project that will be entitled to new, more destructive updates that can reach more devices. This malware began to spread in June of this year (2019) and was able to hit thousands of devices by disabling them. Fortunately there is a possibility to recover them, just having to install the firmware again, which is something that most users do not know how to do.

Perhaps the most cartoonish thing about this story is that this malware has no effect if devices do not meet standard authentication. However, as we know practically all users who have IoT devices do not change the factory settings and passwords.

A great lesson we can learn from this event is not only that people are sloppy, but that investing in the security and protection of any IoT device is crucial, as if everyone is interconnected, if one device is hacked, the entire network is endangered. The fact that they are all connected to the network also makes devices more vulnerable if the network has little protection.

As IoT devices are often personal data collection devices, it is very serious if such data is handled by unwanted and malicious people, especially when we are unaware.

If a 14-year-old man can do this, what a professional hacker can't do! Close attention is needed to this type of problem.

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