A manufacturer in Shenzhen, China installed backdoors in more than 1.3 million TV devices and made them available for criminal groups to use. Google in the United States and Japan's National Police Agency announced that they had worked together to neutralize the devices, while the damage spread by using household internet connections overseas.
It has come to light that backdoors were embedded in more than 1.3 million TV devices manufactured in China and that criminal groups were allowed to use them. Google and Japan's National Police Agency announced that they had cooperated to neutralize the devices.
There were 4,747 fraudulent money-transfer incidents, at least 737 of which allegedly used consumer IoT devices as relays. The compromised devices were reportedly sold to other criminal groups for use.
There were mainly 4 ways of generating revenue with the hijacked devices: renting out household internet connections as relay points for criminals, committing advertising fraud through invisible ad displays, extracting and selling SMS authentication codes, and forcibly launching apps to inflate user numbers.
Cases involving these methods have already been prosecuted in China. Victims in Japan are often located overseas, underscoring the importance of recognizing the risks associated with internet-connected devices.