A Casino’s Smart Fish Tank Left Them Vulnerable To Hackers

These days we are starting to see how just about anything can be made “smart” just by making it connected to the internet. However it seems that in our eagerness to make everything smart, security might have been compromised, which is what one casino might have found out in a costly way no thanks to a smart fish tank.

According to a report from security firm Darktrace (via CNN), it seems that hackers discovered that a casino was vulnerable to their hacks thanks to the installation of a smart fish tank system. The hackers then tried to steal data from the casino, which they seemed to be successful as the data was then sent to a device in Finland before the threat was discovered and stopped.

It is unclear exactly what was stolen and which casino it was, but it does highlight some security concerns of such devices. Speaking to CNN Tech, Justin Fier, director for cyber intelligence and analysis at Darktrace said, “Someone used the fish tank to get into the network, and once they were in the fish tank, they scanned and found other vulnerabilities and moved laterally to other places in the network.”

This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard about how smart connected objects have been found to contain security flaws and vulnerabilities, but hopefully these stories will force the companies behind them to step up their efforts in making them more secure.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Connected Objects, Hack, IoT (Internet of Things), Security