American network security company Palo Alto Networks recently released a report that the company found a serious security vulnerability in the product firmware of Contec, a Japanese manufacturer of smart solar panels. Used by hackers for cyber attacks.
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According to Contec’s official website, these solar panels have been installed in about 30,000 locations. The panels are part of Contec’s SolarView system, which actively monitors solar farms, so each solar panel is a veritable IoT device.
The vulnerability discovered this time and more than 20 others form a variant of the Mirai botnet described by Palo Alto Networks. First discovered in 2016, the Mirai botnet has ample potential for damage due to the rise of IoT devices, and it still shows no signs of slowing down.
It is found that in addition to Contec, other IoT devices with vulnerabilities also involved many well-known manufacturers such as TP-Link, Netgear, MediaTek, Tenda, etc., from routers to CCTV cameras, to solar energy Battery boards and various IoT devices have potential safety hazards.
Palo Alto Networks also stated that due to the low frequency of firmware updates of IoT devices and the low willingness of users to actively update, many devices may still be running old firmware many years ago, which will further increase the risk of IoT devices encountering cyber attacks .
