How does translation affect the perception of news on the Internet?
In the world of digital technologies, an unusual incident occurred, which, as it turned out, turned out to be fiction, but managed to cause a wide response in the media. Many publications published sensational headlines that millions of smart toothbrushes were used in a DDoS attack against a Swiss company, causing millions of euros in damage.
The source of such reports was a publication in the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung, telling how attackers secretly infected 3 million electric toothbrushes with Java malware. According to the article, we simultaneously overloaded the target site with false requests, which led to its shutdown for 4 hours.
However, it soon became clear that this story is fiction. The information security company Fortinet, mentioned in the article as a source of information, did not confirm the fact of the attack. Moreover, the press service and social networks of the company did not contain any reports about the incident. Attempts by journalists and cybersecurity researchers to get comments from Fortinet were also unsuccessful.
However, experts believe it is unlikely that electric toothbrushes can be used for such attacks, since they do not connect directly to the Internet, but interact with mobile applications via Bluetooth. To carry out a mass attack, it would be necessary to conduct an attack on the supply chain and inject malicious software directly into the devices, but no evidence of such a scenario has been found.
Fortinet specialists told BleepingComputer that a DDoS attack using toothbrushes was a hypothetical scenario, and not a real case. The company clarified that the topic of using toothbrushes for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview with the Aargauer Zeitung newspaper as an illustration of a specific type of attack, and is not based on research by Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs. However, due to translation inaccuracies, the situation was distorted, and hypothetical scenarios were presented as real. Fortinet also noted that the researchers did not find any IoT botnets targeting toothbrushes or similar devices.
Although the story about the toothbrush DDoS botnet is not true, it is still a good reminder that attackers will attack any device connected to the Internet-routers, servers, programmable logic controllers( PLCs), printers and webcams. Therefore, it is extremely important that any device connected to the Internet has the latest security updates and strong passwords to prevent their use in DDoS botnets. The good news is that your toothbrush won't become a tool of cybercriminals, so you can safely continue using it.
In the world of digital technologies, an unusual incident occurred, which, as it turned out, turned out to be fiction, but managed to cause a wide response in the media. Many publications published sensational headlines that millions of smart toothbrushes were used in a DDoS attack against a Swiss company, causing millions of euros in damage.
The source of such reports was a publication in the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung, telling how attackers secretly infected 3 million electric toothbrushes with Java malware. According to the article, we simultaneously overloaded the target site with false requests, which led to its shutdown for 4 hours.
However, it soon became clear that this story is fiction. The information security company Fortinet, mentioned in the article as a source of information, did not confirm the fact of the attack. Moreover, the press service and social networks of the company did not contain any reports about the incident. Attempts by journalists and cybersecurity researchers to get comments from Fortinet were also unsuccessful.
However, experts believe it is unlikely that electric toothbrushes can be used for such attacks, since they do not connect directly to the Internet, but interact with mobile applications via Bluetooth. To carry out a mass attack, it would be necessary to conduct an attack on the supply chain and inject malicious software directly into the devices, but no evidence of such a scenario has been found.
Fortinet specialists told BleepingComputer that a DDoS attack using toothbrushes was a hypothetical scenario, and not a real case. The company clarified that the topic of using toothbrushes for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview with the Aargauer Zeitung newspaper as an illustration of a specific type of attack, and is not based on research by Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs. However, due to translation inaccuracies, the situation was distorted, and hypothetical scenarios were presented as real. Fortinet also noted that the researchers did not find any IoT botnets targeting toothbrushes or similar devices.
Although the story about the toothbrush DDoS botnet is not true, it is still a good reminder that attackers will attack any device connected to the Internet-routers, servers, programmable logic controllers( PLCs), printers and webcams. Therefore, it is extremely important that any device connected to the Internet has the latest security updates and strong passwords to prevent their use in DDoS botnets. The good news is that your toothbrush won't become a tool of cybercriminals, so you can safely continue using it.
