Forget about hackers. They were a 2006 worry. These days, if you’re operating anywhere near the IoT, you’re going to need to worry about “commjackers.”
According to Dror Liwer, chief security officer, Israeli security firm CoroNet, commjackers are a class of signal thief that has been largely secreted away inside governments and other sophisticated, extremely well-funded, spy organizations. Now, however, equipment for hijacking cellular, wireless and other over-the-air signals has gone from millions in cost and huge in size to a mere pittance, and organized crime syndicates, data thieves and other evildoers can get hold of this tech for as little as $50 for Wi-Fi and $1,500 for cellular.
These devices, when paired with easily available open-source software, gives bad actors access to data, and control of jacked devices. CoroNet has dubbed these people commjackers, and they are the current arch-nemeses of the IoT. Commjacking gives cyber attackers the ability to eavesdrop on or record conversations, intercept data transmissions to and from the device, and alter the data and messages or the device itself remotely.
“Last year, 300,000 homes in London were commjacked, many with protected wifi signals in place, and activity data was sent to hackers in Russia. We don’t even know for how long,” said Liwer. “Once a bad connection takes over, it’s very hard to reroute.”
All hope is not lost. To combat this risk, CoroNet has created the first defense against commjacking. This breakthrough new product detects and evades commjacking on any wireless network, in real time, making any device resilient to the attack. It does that by sensing the attempted compromise and sending the at-risk signal to a safe node before it can be taken hostage.
“Until now, cyber criminals, industrial spies and crime syndicates could readily commjack the crown jewels of an enterprise. CoroNet is the first and only software solution available for the enterprise that stops commjacking in its tracks,” said Liwer. “Through the use of CoroNet’s breakthrough technology, carriers and MSSPs can protect enterprise customers by successfully and immediately plugging this backdoor that cyber criminals are rushing to exploit.”
CoroNet employs “echoing” technology to map the network behavior around protected devices across more than 300 parameters. Advanced behavioral algorithms monitor radio traffic for both recognized behavioral models and unknown anomalies. If a threat is found or suspected, the solution cloaks cellular or Wi-Fi-enabled devices and IoT devices.
Welcome to 2015.