Look out, hackers are coming for your Apple Watch: Cyber attacks against smart watches and other wearables rising sharply
Cybercriminals are increasingly turning their eye to smart watches and other wearables, according to IT security group Kaspersky Lab.
And it’s not just Apple Watches that are getting hit. Wearables are a rapidly growing segment with one in five mobile payments expected to be made from a smart watch, fitness tracker or other type of payment band by 2020.
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As this represents a transaction value of $500bn annually, it’s “inevitable” according to Kaspersky, that these will become a growing target for cyber attacks.
This is a particular source of concern as many of these devices are notoriously unsecured today.
Eugene Kaspersky, chairman and chief executive of Kaspersky Lab, said:
As the number of connected devices continues to grow, so does the number of threats. And unfortunately there are millions of devices in active use today that were never designed to be secure.
But security should be built-in from the very outset. There’s an urgent need to establish and implement higher levels of security for IoT devices.