As I browse the aisles of Home Depot and Lowes, it’s quite impressive and, at the same time unsettling as an IT Security Professional to see the increasing amount of IoT (Internet of Things) devices being developed and offered to target the “Smart Home.”

In late October of 2016, a domain name service (DNS), host and Internet management company for 80+ major websites experienced several bouts of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by botnets (short for “robot network”). The end devices were being controlled by a Control Server (CNC Server) not unlike the Droid Control Ships controlling the Droid Armies in Star Wars. The FBI has stated that they do not have any confirmation of a specific group or groups claiming responsibility in the hacker community, but they believe the machines were infected with a variation of the Mirai malware.