The fridge that sent spam emails!

It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but at the beginning of 2014, the world’s first ever spam attack involving household appliances hit, when hackers managed to get into consumer gadgets. The attack is believed to have happened between December 23 last year and January 6, and caused affected appliances to annoy massive amounts of people by sending out waves of malicious email in bursts of 100,000 three times per day. Thankfully, each device or gadget only sent around ten emails. About three-quarters of the emails were sent by computers, but the rest were sent out by hacked home appliances.

California-based security group, Proofpoint revealed in January that they’d uncovered a wide-scale hack involving television sets and at least one fridge. Hackers broke into more than 100,000 gadgets that were connected up to the internet, including home-networking routers, televisions, multimedia centres, and of course, that fridge.

The attack, which experts have called the first home appliance ‘botnet’ involved compromising computers, so that while they looked as if they were functioning as normal, in reality they were being controlled by cyber criminals.

The prospect of having your household appliances hacked into by some lowlife criminal with nothing better to do is a really annoying prospect for anyone who uses online controllers to operate anything in the home.  As there are now options for so many devices to be connected and controlled by the Internet, have we just opened up a can of worms and given malicious hackers a way to compromise household appliances just as they might a laptop or computer?

The answer to preventing these attacks in the future seems to be improving our online security. It seems that the hackers get into the fridges and appliances easily, because some people can be a little bit lax when it comes to online security with smart devices and controllers. Most of the devices used to send out emails were still set up with the device’s default password, making it really simple for any hacker to get straight in and take control.

David Knight, General Manager of Proofpoint's Information Security division said, “Many of these devices are poorly protected at best and consumers have virtually no way to detect or fix infections when they do occur.”

“These devices are typically not protected by the anti-spam and anti-virus infrastructures available to organisations and individual consumers, nor are they routinely monitored by dedicated IT teams,” said Proofpoint.

If you have remote networks controlling your heating, lighting, entertainment or of course your fridge, change the password, quickly!

Overhaul your kitchen – trends for 2014

So your kitchen is in need of an overhaul, but all you’re seeing is sparkling chrome and you really want something a bit different. Well, as expert kitchen designers, we know that individuality is the way forward, so if you want to move away from uniformity and embrace a few new ideas, how do these trends grab you?

Individual lighting accents

Seamless storage and barely there cabinets are leaving more room for decorative lighting, especially as upper cabinets are being replaced by cleverly placed cupboards at a lower level. This gives an illusion of more room even in a smaller kitchen, and with clever lighting you can enhance the space even more. There’s not so much need for limited under cabinet lighting, so you can make the most of moveable sconces and adjustable arms which direct the light to where you want it most.

Splash backs

The natural look is big in 2014, with real, natural materials making a splash – quite literally – in the modern kitchen. There’s more space around cooker hoods and sinks to play around with splash backs. You could choose glass and go for a brightly coloured decorative effect, or follow the natural route and make the splash back a focal point with slabs of marble and limestone.

Brass, aged gold and black hardware

The shine has gone off the chrome and stainless steel kitchen – warmer metals like iron and graphite are starting to make a comeback, and you can see statement cooker hoods all over the place with combinations of the materials which look really dramatic and different when we’re used to everything having such a high shine!

Built-in cabinets 

Another new look for 2014 is built-in accent cabinets that act as framework for the rest of the cabinetry. The accent cabinets can be designed so that they sit tall and narrow on worktops or on either side of the cooker, and contrasting in shade to the rest of the cabinets, adding a little extra design touch to a simple kitchen.

Natural raw materials 

Even the walls are embracing the back to nature trend, with exposed brick and concrete making an appearance again along with attractive wooden planks and exposed beams. If you don’t have the real thing – you can even fake it with a veneer so that it looks like you’ve taken your kitchen back to basics!
We can work with you to design the kitchen of your dreams, whether you want a rustic, pared-back kitchen with accent lighting and built in cabinets or a shiny chrome kitchen that you can see your reflection in. Just contact the experts at Paul James Design Studios and we’ll work with you to create your dream kitchen.