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A casino's high-roller database was allegedly accessed via a security flaw in a fish tank.  Unrelated fish pictured.

A cybersecurity executive has revealed that hackers used an Internet of Things (IoT) connected fish tank thermostat to gain access to a casino's high-roller database. Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan told the story to an audience in London last week.  “The attackers used that to get a foothold in the network,” she explained. “They then found the high-roller database and then pulled that back across the network, out the thermostat, and up to the cloud.” The incident raises awareness about the security of IoT objects.

It has also been reported that hackers have been able to access the camera on robot vacuum cleaners and used it to tour the interior of a home. The former head of the British government’s digital spying agency, Robert Hannigan, says the sheer scale of IoT connected devices is part of the problem.

“With the internet of things producing thousands of new devices shoved onto the internet over the next few years, that’s going to be an increasing problem,” Hannigan said. “I saw a bank that had been hacked through its CCTV cameras because these devices are bought purely on cost.”

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are increasingly a fact of life for any business with a web presence. For any company, large or small, it’s no longer a matter of “if” you will get hit with a DDoS attack, but “when.” And without a third party provider who site between your site and the internet, WordPress and Joomla! sites are increasingly vulnerable to bots delivering DDoS attacks.

Why only WordPress and Joomla! sites you may ask - it's not just them but these platforms make up most of the CMS based sites on the internet and are often owned by people with limited technical knowledge on $1 per month hosting plans. Add to this the fact they haven't been updated in ages and it makes easy pickings for hackers and other malicious actors.

The Internet of Things (IoT) security problem isn't going away. The connected network of billions of devices – from smart doorbells to office printers – is regularly found to have privacy problems and be open to attack by potential hackers.

The latest security issue is that Google's artificial intelligence Home speaker and the Chromecast, the firm's streaming device, have been found to reveal a user's precise physical location. It's been found that some commands the Home and Chromecast devices receive are transmitted across unsecured HTTP connections and without any form of authentication.