Assume all your gadgets have been hacked or are hackable – security expert

personal health records

With humanity’s deepening love for gadgets, privacy becomes a privilege, not a given. Cyber walls are not enough to repel potential intruders. They may be already in, spying inside your keyboard, mouse, or a USB cord.

If the last paragraph sounded a bit paranoid, take a second to think about hardware-based hacking. A tiny microchip planted on a regular input device you were convinced you bought with an unbroken seal. How about a USB cable capable of transferring data elsewhere with only one side connected? 

Even though this sounds like something from a spy movie, Bentsi Benatar, a former Israeli intelligence officer and a co-founder of a rogue device mitigation (RDM) company, Sepio Systems, claims financial and industrial systems were penetrated using hacked cables and keyboards. 

“Personally, I assume that at any given time, I’m surrounded by devices that are either hackable or have already been hacked. […] If I have something important to tell my wife, I’ll whisper it in her ear,” Benatar told CyberNews. 

August 19th, 2021