When asked regardless of whether the complete Internet of Things — that is, every little thing from a kid’s WiFi enabled toy to someone’s biomedical device — would be a boon for the NSA or just a complete lot of digital noise to sift by way of, Ledgett replied, “Both.”
“As my job is to penetrate other people’s networks, complexity is my friend,” he continued. “The first time you update the software, you introduce vulnerabilities, or variables rather. It’s a good place to be in a penetration point of view.”
Earlier this year, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also said during a Senate hearing that web-connected devices could be helpful for “identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials.” Clapper’s workplace did, even so, comply with up that statement with the caveat that, “information obtained from a refrigerator, a washing machine, or a child’s toy” is no substitute for access to terrorists’ actual communications.
