Quite unfortunately, September 2016 saw a massive cybercrime attack victimizing the website of a salient blogger and a French hosting firm that goes by the name of OVH. Reportedly, DDoS attack involved over one trillion bits of data!
As far as we now know, these wicked hackers bombarded the websites with colossal amounts of data in what's known as the Distributed Denial of Service Attacks or DDoS attack. This data was being sent through hacked digital video recorders, IP cameras and various other smart devices, according to The Recorder.
In this day and age of internet, it's very important to secure yourself from ever-increasing cybercrime. But how would a layman know whether their webcam is being hacked and, in the process, attacking someone else?
This isn't easy to detect DDoS attack, but the most prominent symptoms that arise on your personal computer if any of its external components are being used to bombard someone else is that the web connection speed will observe a significant decline.
However, this nosedive won't be much apparent if you're just browsing the internet. DDoS attack will manifest while streaming music and videos online or while gaming sessions. A lag is observed in both cases, beware. Tech-savvy folks might use certain software tools to detect data packets flowing across their home network. But this can be quite challenging unless you really know your stuff.
The question now arises, why do hackers want to take control of external hardware. The answer is pretty simple. It's because these equipment are far easier to intrude than computers or servers. Plus they have default passwords with no security software installed which makes them an easy target for DDoS attack.
Previously when hackers wanted to execute DDoS attack, they had to rent hijacked machines from other people. But now, they can easily scan for vulnerable devices from afar and forge their own armies of zombie devices. In this day and age, you have to make sure that all your internal and external electronic components especially your webcam, are in safe hands. You never know who's manipulating them behind the curtains, using your name to hurt others.
