Human ingenuity never ceases to amaze
me. This time it was a hacker who developed a methodology to answer
the question, “How big is the Internet?”
The results were spectacular – so too
was a collateral discovery:
The anonymous person simply wanted
to find out how many devices that were online could be opened with
the standard password "root," he writes in a kind of
research report on the project, entitled "Internet Census 2012."
The result was the discovery that there are hundreds of thousands of
devices secured only with the most common standard password, or
without any password at all.
One of the largest groups of devices
he found were routers, an issue we recommend that readers address
immediately. Routers received by Internet providers are likely to
have one of a few standard administrator passwords, including "root"
or "admin."
Click on the following link to see how usage of the Internet changes over a 24 hour period. It's also well worth clicking on the internal link to savour a beautifully written account of the methodology behind the investigation.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/hacker-measures-the-internet-illegally-with-carna-botnet-a-890413.html
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