Casino Hacked via IoT Water Tank

Many people and businesses have been victims of phishing. However, one casino learned the hard way that a fish tank can also be a dangerous accessory. Darktrace, a security firm, reported that a North American Casino was the victim of a hacking attempt. They hacked through the casino’s fish tank which was connected to the internet.

Despite the extra layers of security set up on the fish tank, the hackers compromised the network and forwarded data to another device in Finland. Fortunately, the threat was discovered and halted immediately. Once the hackers got through the network through the fish tank, they discovered other vulnerabilities in the system and moved to other places in the network.

Since more and more devices are being connected to the internet, malicious third parties are looking for new ways to access the networks and take advantage of any vulnerability. Take an instance where the fish tank was connected to the internet to feed the fish automatically and keep the environment comfortable. However, it was seen as a vulnerability by hackers who used it to get into the casino’s network. Casinos use a lot of methods to prevent fraud, however sometimes there are some overlooked areas.

In a report published by Darktrace on Thursday, it was identified that the casino’s attack was one of 9 unusual threats that have happened recently. In the report, there are other hacking examples compiled from the threat detection technology from the company. Darktrace is responsible for creating security technology which is installed in the company’s network and monitors everything that takes place.

Any activity, in this case, refers to anything from data transferred between computers or actions from a coffee maker. If an anomaly is identified such a rogue device or wrong transference of data, the company’s security team is alerted immediately. In another hacking attack, smart drawing pads connected to an insecure WIFI connection were used to transfer data to websites globally, an act referred to as a denial of service attack.

The hacker scanned the internet in search of vulnerable devices then exploited them to flood other sites with a lot of traffic. It’s a common act where cyber criminals exploit connected devices for destructive purposes. Recently, the Mirai botnet controlled all the smart home devices globally and turned them into zombies machines that directed traffic to bring down popular sites like Twitter and Netflix.