McNichols had heard recent news stories about bad guys hacking into some family’s personal assistants, such as Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Watson. Once in the system, hackers can control any of the connected smart home devices — lights, baby monitors, electrical outlets, music players and cameras. McNichols spoke to Infosec CEO Jack Koziol to find out how real the threat is and just how easy it is for hackers to gain access to home systems. We know more than 80% of those hacked are tricked by phishing emails, and while this is an old technique, the bad guys still use it with great success. Infosec Security Engineer Carmen Bulanda (right) needed only five minutes to hack into Joshua McNichols’ personal assistant app. When McNichols clicked on the fake phishing email from Infosec, our “hacker” could spy on him and his daughter from one of their home devices.
Anything hooked up to McNichols’ home system is under the hacker’s control. Here our security engineer is looking at the lights and electrical outlets in the home. Thanks to Joshua McNichols and KUOW for this informative and entertaining story. It was great working with them and we think you’ll learn something important when you give it a listen. You can enjoy the full Primed podcast and there is also an online account of the story with audio and more photos: Infosec can empower your company and employees with education to spot and avoid phishing emails with our award-winning Infosec IQ security awareness training platform. Request a demo of Infosec IQ security awareness and phishing simulation platform to see for yourself DEMO NOW
