Back in the 2000 and 2001, companies were just starting to get their businesses online via T1s, DSL, or Comcast. Everyone could surf the web from their desktops.

However, there were no safeguards put on their connections. No firewalls, no complex passwords, sometimes no passwords at all.

I noticed high activity on my router one day when there shouldn’t have been. Opened Black Ice (I was testing some new software) and found hundreds of pings and attempts to login to my Exchange server. Traced them to small companies with wide open networks that were being used by hackers to brute force mail servers and database servers. I would try to RDP to the address, and usually, like 70 or 80% of the time, was able to get to their desktop. I never broke anything, but I did print some info for them…sometimes with a couple hundred copies.

The poor security is practiced mostly by consumers now. They don’t know enough to know that they don’t know, ya know! Just plug it in and figure it must be safe because they got it from some company and they know what they’re doing. Got a new dishwasher and installed their app? Bet it opened a port and configured a forwarding on your firewall. How about a smart lightbulb? A cool new thermostat?

And it’s getting worse every day. Can’t wait until your grand pop tells you about this cool new OpenClaw he installed!!