SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 It\u2019s an utterly played out platitude that the security industry is largely failing at its mission to protect computers and networks and all the nearly infinite data transiting the Internet.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s inarguable that properly securing traditional and general computing devices is a massive challenge. For the better part of the last decade, mobile has presented the industry with a new and similar set of challenges<\/a>. It\u2019s probably not a stretch to say that the fight to secure traditional and mobile computers is tipped severely in favor of the attackers, ethical, malicious and otherwise.<\/p>\n Walking the show floor at the RSA Conference in San Fransisco\u2019s Moscone Center presents an absurd and ironic reality. There is some unknown number of millions of dollars invested in vendor booths, the purpose of which is to hawk of a multitude of security products and services to an equally multitudinous hoard of security professionals. Meanwhile, despite the vastly larger investments required to develop these products, people like Billy Rios, who famously gave an airport security hacking presentation last year<\/a>, and David Jacoby are delivering hacking demos in which they wrest total control of home automation systems, networks and consumer devices.<\/p>\n Internet of (crappy) Things: documenting #IoT insecurity live at #RSAC<\/p>Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n To be fair, much of the business going on here at RSA is business to business. This is not a consumer security conference by any stretch. Still, recent headlines and the relentless torrent of global security conferences pretty clearly demonstrate that computers are insecure, whether they\u2019re in your home or in your office. Despite this, the broader tech industry is aggressively pursuing the bright idea to connect more and stranger things to the Internet on an exponential scale. This is the so-called \u201cInternet of things,\u201d and it\u2019s not secure either.<\/p>\n Therefore it comes as little surprise that Billy Rios<\/a>, founder of the security firm Laconicly, exploited a two year old vulnerability in a Vera smart-home automation device, which in turn offered him total access to that device\u2019s network and all the computers attached to it.<\/p>\n So @XSSniper<\/a> is going to demo a home automation hack at @RSAConference<\/a>, using Pac-Man to illustrate it: http:\/\/t.co\/LJW27SsAWJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kelly Jackson Higgins (@kjhiggins) April 16, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n