Shodan, the search engine for insecure IoT objects

It's a service born in 2009 that allows you to see videos and images from unsecured webcams around the world, from bars to homes, without the knowledge of the victims

Have you just bought a webcam? A word of advice before you start using it: set a password. No, it's not paranoia, but prevention. There is, in fact, a search engine, called Shodan, capable of finding unprotected IoT devices, including webcams and security cameras.

Shodan: don't know you're being watched.

Staring at a webcam or a camera that is turned off, someone may have thought at least once in their life: "I wonder if someone is watching me". The answer is one: it's likely: for hackers it's normal to infect computers and spy on users via webcam. There are, in fact, services like Shodan, a search engine that allows you to discover unprotected devices and objects of the Internet of Things. Since its creation in 2009 it has suibitly begun to show the vulnerability of constantly connected objects, especially if users after purchase do nothing to protect them. How to set a password.

How Shodan works

Shodan has a section that allows the user to navigate around the world thanks to the images it receives from unsecured webcams scattered in every country. Gardens, office interiors or homes. So much for privacy. And without the knowledge of the victims. Using Shodan is simple: just sign up and choose whether to opt for limited daily access for searches or unlimited access. The first option is free and the second is paid. A research carried out by the website Quartz reported screenshots of cleaners in an office, an interior of a house and even the interior of a bar in Hungary where some friends are drinking a beer. It looks like Big Brother but it's reality.