Bitdefender sells antivirus for your fridge in a box

VIRUS busting firm Bitdefender is about to sell Australians a little white box designed to stop your fridge from being hacked.

Bogdan Botezatu, senior e-threat analyst at Bitdefender, with the Box - a device that stops hackers from entering your home network via a fridge or other connected device.

VIRUS busting firm Bitdefender is about to sell Australians a little white box designed to stop your internet-connected fridge from being hacked.

Simply known as The Box, the device also aims to secure your wi-fi cameras, smart TVs, webcams, smart washing machine, connected ceiling fans, crockpots, door locks, lights, garage door openers and even medical devices.

The age of homes each with dozens of connected devices online looms as a security nightmare. A survey last year by Hewlett-Packard found 70 per cent of the most commonly used Internet of Things (IoT) devices had security vulnerabilities.

These devices typically communicated over the internet without password security, with no encryption and offered hackers easy access to a home network. Some even covertly collected a user’s data for marketing purposes.

Even more alarming is that by 2020, 26 billion of these devices will be connected online, according to IT research firm Gartner.

A hacker could alter the embedded code in a smart fridge to send out 100,000s of malicious SPAM emails, take control of a home network, access data on computers attached to that network, and worse.

Nightmare scenarios include arsonists remotely tweaking a home thermostat to dangerous temperature levels, switching off lights ahead of a burglary and then hacking a smart door lock. In an extreme example, a malicious person could hack an insulin pump and alter the dose, causing death.

In November last year, a Russian website streamed feeds from 73,000 unsecured webcams in 256 countries — the cameras were found to have insufficient or no password protection.

HP’s study found on average 25 security vulnerabilities per product tested.

There’s no easy way to install antivirus software in a fridge, so Bitdefender’s answer is its little box that connects to a router and handles communications with home network devices.

Bitdefender showed off the technology at a Tech Leaders’ conference held near Sydney on the weekend. Bitdefender said it would ward off “fraud, malware, data theft, spying and other modern-day ills”.

“The Box represents the birth of a faster, smarter, leaner and more convenient weapon against online dangers,” said Bogdan Botezatu, senior e-threat analyst at Bitdefender.

He said the Box would be available in Australia before year’s end. Bitdefender won’t nominate the local price but in the US, the Box will sell for $US199 which includes the first year of a $US99 annual subscription.

Based in Bucharest, Bitdefender is the story of a Romanian IT firm that has risen to be among the world’s respected antivirus software producers.