How Your Coffee Machine Is Letting Hackers Steal Your Information
The coffee machine is probably the most valuable machine to all of humanity. Without it, most of us would not even be able to get out of bed in the mornings. And just having that surge of energy after your daily dose of caffeine is the best feeling ever.
Since it’s such an important piece of the puzzle that is human life, we’ve been trying to make our coffee machines, fancier and more technologically advanced. Although most may argue that having a standard coffee machine that does a good job at making, well, coffee, is ample, lots of millennials have been swooning over the latest tech in coffee makers where it connects to the Internet.
You can make your coffee right from bed and it would be there waiting for you, who doesn’t want that? But, what we see is only the bright side of things. The hidden side of this technology is that, as with all other things that have to do with the internet, your coffee machine is hackable.
What Hackers Can Steal From Your Coffee Machine
You may be thinking, what data does a coffee machine have about me that I have to be worried about it being hackable? The coffee machine itself may not hold any data, but remember, the device that you use to control it is your smartphone.
Your smartphone, in turn, is connected to your home WiFi, which is also what all your smart home items are linked to, from your fridge to your TV, everything. These smart home items are actually a vector for hackers to access your Internet connection, through which you send data to other places on the world wide web and also to your smartphone, which is a gold mine of personal and banking data.
How To Prevent From Having Personal Data Hacked
The thing is that coffee machines, TVs and fridges are not built in a way that you can secure them. Their main function is to provide additional comfort to mankind, not to protect data. What these actually are, they are gateways into your Internet connection and these “open doors” give the hackers a first-class access to all your data.
The best way to prevent such access if to avoid purchasing such smart home items. They are smart, yes, but they aren’t smart enough to protect your data and privacy, when they’re connected to the internet. Another option is to only connect them to the Internet when you need it to be in use. This reduces the amount of time that the gateways to your Internet connection are being open, thus reducing your chance of being targeted by a hacker.
It’s scary to see how the technology that is supposed to be making life easier is starting to become a threat to our personal and confidential data. Until security is amped up on such smart home items, there is no way of telling when your smart TV or your smart fridge may be transferring your data to hackers, from right under your nose.
Be wary if your smart home items suddenly begin to act up and not carry out tasks like they should. Should there be a hack, lots of people who diligently use smart home items, would also be receiving threat emails, explicitly stating such hacks. Run a quick email lookup on the email address and turn in the details to the police to ensure that your data has not been compromised.
Disclaimer:
The above is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute a legal advice or specific recommendations in any way.
