Experts warn Bash bug poses “catastrophic” threat to devices in the home

EXPERTS warn a new cyber bug, called Bash Bug, can attack all your smartphone-controlled devices. And you need to protect yourself now.

IT’S the new cyber threat that threatens the smartphone-controlled devices in your home and it’s already been called a greater threat than Heartbleed.

It’s the Bash Bug, or Shellshock, and computer security Robert Graham of Errata Security says it’s a bigger threat than Heartbleed because it potentially affects so many devices.

“The thing with the Heartbleed bug wasn’t that that the internet was going to collapse, but that it’s in so many places that we really can’t eradicate it all,” Graham says in his blog.

“Saying ‘as bad as Heartbleed’ doesn’t mean your website is going to get hacked tomorrow, but that a year from now we’ll be reading about how hackers got in using the vulnerability to something interesting.

I think I was wrong saying #shellshock was as big as #heartbleed. It's bigger.

— Robert Graham (@ErrataRob) September 25, 2014

“Internet-of-things devices like video cameras are especially vulnerable because a lot of their software is built from web-enabled bash scripts. Thus, not only are they less likely to be patched, they are more likely to expose the vulnerability to the outside world.”

Red Hat computer security researchers have labelled it as “catastrophic”.

French IT manager Stephane Chazelas discovered the bug in the Bash software used on Linux computers, which potentially allows hackers to exploit weaknesses in internet-connected devices by using things such as smart light bulbs to connect through to the rest of a network.

The challenge for consumers is working out if their devices are at risk.

The solution is to check with the manufacturers, particularly in the next few days and follow any advice to update software.