Research: Millions of smart devices vulnerable to hacking

Potentially affected devices range from networked thermometers to ‘smart’ plugs and printers to office routers and healthcare appliances to components of industrial control systems, a cybersecurity firm said in a report on Dec 8. Picture is of an LED-illuminated wireless router. — AP

BOSTON: Researchers at an cybersecurity firm say they have identified vulnerabilities in software widely used by millions of connected devices – flaws that could be exploited by hackers to penetrate business and home computer networks and disrupt them.

There is no evidence of any intrusions that made use of these vulnerabilities. But their existence in data-communications software central to Internet-connected devices prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to flag the issue in a bulletin.