How many lightbulbs does it take to put a network at risk?
Summary
If its a Philips Hue bulb the answer to the question in the headline above is just one according to new research from Check Point which has uncovered vulnerabilities that could enable a hacker to deliver ransomware or other malware to business and home networks by taking over the smart lightbulbs and their controller. Researchers focused on the market-leading Philips Hue smart bulbs and bridge, and found vulnerabilities that enabled them to infiltrate networks using a remote exploit in the ZigBee low-power wireless protocol that is used to control a wide range of IoT devices. Using this remaining vulnerability, Check Point researchers took this work one step further and used the Hue lightbulb as a platform to take over the bulbs control bridge and ultimately, attack the targets computer network. "Its critical that organizations and individuals protect themselves against these possible attacks by updating their devices with the latest patches and separating them from other machines on their networks, to limit the possible spread of malware. The hacker-controlled bulb with updated firmware then uses the ZigBee protocol vulnerabilities to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow on the control bridge, by sending a large amount of data to it.
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