DDoS Attack Through Vending Machines Hits University

Verizon's preview of its 2017 Data Breach Digest in February revealed that an unnamed university was hit by a DDoS attack launched through vending machines, lights, and 5,000 other IoT devices.

According to Verizon, an incident commander noticed that “name servers, responsible for Domain Name Service (DNS) lookups, were producing high-volume alerts and showed an abnormal number of sub-domains related to seafood."

While administrators were locked out, the university intercepted "the clear text password for a compromised IoT device over the wire and then use that information to perform a password change before the next malware update.”