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1. Embed this notice
   Kevin Beaumont (gossithedog@cyberplace.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 06:04:07 JST Kevin Beaumont

   The three million toothbrush botnet story isn’t true.

   • Embed this notice
     Nick Schiwy (itsshevee@tusky.town)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 06:10:19 JST Nick Schiwy

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog I don't even know if you're just shitposting or if that is a real fake thing but I'm now in love with the idea of a toothbrush botnet

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     Tom Sellers (tomsellers@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 07:18:41 JST Tom Sellers

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog

     Here is a Fortinet PDF for the Is my toothbrush really smart? presentation by Axelle Apvrille at Troopers in 2018. I suspect this information is what they are referencing in the article.

     https://filestore.fortinet.com/fortiguard/research/toothbrush.pdf

   • Embed this notice
     Kevin Beaumont (gossithedog@cyberplace.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 07:21:01 JST Kevin Beaumont

     in reply to

     The toothbrush thing has gone viral despite it being total bollocks.

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     Taggart :donor: (mttaggart@infosec.town)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 07:25:49 JST Taggart :donor:

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog Aw dang, thanks for sharing this. But the archive.is link doesn't actually let you read the story. It's obscured even in that form by other text.

   • Embed this notice
     Füsilier Breitlinger (barubary@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 07:53:54 JST Füsilier Breitlinger

     • Taggart :donor:

     @GossiTheDog @mttaggart That says the toothbrush incident actually happened, despite sounding like a Hollywood scenario.

   • Embed this notice
     Taggart :donor: (mttaggart@infosec.town)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:00:32 JST Taggart :donor:

     in reply to

     • Füsilier Breitlinger

     @barubary @GossiTheDog I think this is a translation issue, as the article was written in German. I believe Kevin is correct that this is hypothetical.

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     Euph0r14 (euph0r14@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:32:59 JST Euph0r14

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog The article says it’s true, I’m not sure what translating tools are outputting but I am german so I will translate a section:

     (Rough translation from me:)

     The electric toothbrush runs on Java, and without any warning or notice Criminals were able to install malware on it - just like 3 million other toothbrushes. One command is enough and at the exact same time the remote controlled Toothbrushes request the website from a Swiss company. The site collapses and is unresponsive for 4 hours. Causing damages in the millions.

     An example that sounds like a Hollywood scene, but which really happened.

     (German OG below)

     Die elektrische Zahnbürste ist mit Java programmiert, und unbemerkt haben Kriminelle darauf eine Schadsoftware installiert - wie auf 3 Millionen anderen Zahnbursten auch. Ein Befehl genügt, und die ferngesteuerten Zahnbürsten rufen gleichzeitig die Website einer Schweizer Firma auf. Die Seite bricht zusammen und ist für vier Stunden lahm gelegt. Es entsteht ein Schaden in Millionenhöhe.
     Das Beispiel, das wie ein Hollywood-Szenario daherkommt, hat sich wirklich so zugetragen.

   • Embed this notice
     Euph0r14 (euph0r14@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:39:08 JST Euph0r14

     • Sergiu Gatlan
     • Taggart :donor:
     • Füsilier Breitlinger

     @GossiTheDog @mttaggart @barubary @serghei

     This news article claims this happened, but my guess is that what actually happened is this:

     Journalists talks with guy from fortinet, fortinet guy explains how a bot net of 3 million devices took down a Swiss companies site, Journalists asks what devices, fortinet guy talks about different things (like smart home devices / iot) and mentions that even a smart toothbrush could be part of such a bot net.

     And the rest is history.

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Slattery (slatteryz@todon.eu)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:39:49 JST Michael Slattery

     in reply to

     • Tom Sellers

     @TomSellers @GossiTheDog "Damage teeth and gums with high speed motor"

   • Embed this notice
     Tom Sellers (tomsellers@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:39:51 JST Tom Sellers

     @GossiTheDog It's also 6 years old. Seems I skimmed a bit too fast.

   • Embed this notice
     Euph0r14 (euph0r14@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:49:43 JST Euph0r14

     • Sergiu Gatlan
     • Taggart :donor:
     • Füsilier Breitlinger
     • Euph0r14

     @GossiTheDog @Euph0r14 @mttaggart @barubary @serghei I tried doing some rudimentary german language searches for big DDoS attacks against Swiss companies and didn’t find something which would fit (would have certainly been in the news?)

     Nothing mentioning 3 million devices.

     I did find ddos attacks from ~2016 against Major Swiss online shopping sites, so maybe this could be meant? They went down for a few hours and could have done millions in damages.

   • Embed this notice
     Euph0r14 (euph0r14@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 08:55:58 JST Euph0r14

     • Sergiu Gatlan
     • Taggart :donor:
     • Füsilier Breitlinger
     • Euph0r14

     @GossiTheDog @Euph0r14 @mttaggart @barubary @serghei yeah NoName, seems to be a bit of a bogeyman in Swiss news (or news in general).

     But I don’t think that example relates to NoName, so I wonder how this came to be.

   • Embed this notice
     Kevin Beaumont (gossithedog@cyberplace.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 17:33:48 JST Kevin Beaumont

     in reply to

     Now NoName have picked up the fake toothbrush story as propaganda for their members.

   • Embed this notice
     Christian Kündig (chkuendig@ioc.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 19:09:05 JST Christian Kündig

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog The weird thing is that in this linked interview, the Fortinet exec claims this really happened to some swiss firm and caused milions in damage during it's 4h outage (which also just doesn't pass the smell test)

   • Embed this notice
     Samuel Leuenberger (leuenberg@cyberplace.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Feb-2024 22:06:46 JST Samuel Leuenberger

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog Thanks to you the French speaking IT media are starting to debunk this story (with proper credits inside the article) :

     https://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-une-attaque-ddos-via-des-brosses-a-dents-connectees-un-scenario-fiction-92904.html

   • Embed this notice
     Kevin Beaumont (gossithedog@cyberplace.social)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 00:15:59 JST Kevin Beaumont

     in reply to

     Fortigate haven’t replied to my PR question about it. Given this is several times the size of the world’s biggest botnet, you’d think they’d have any evidence.. at all.

   • Embed this notice
     Loman-Feusagach (lomanfeusagach@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 00:32:46 JST Loman-Feusagach

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog it is amazing how quickly it spread without any fact checking.

   • Embed this notice
     Ti Kallisti (bartmoss_h4x0r@corteximplant.com)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 08:00:43 JST Ti Kallisti

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog The source said it actually happened, though, right?
     Are they lying?

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     0ddj0bb (0ddj0bb@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 08:01:28 JST 0ddj0bb

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog the german in the archive link seems to indicate the example actually happened though.

   • Embed this notice
     Heretical_i (heretical_i@kafeneio.social)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 08:05:18 JST Heretical_i

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog Tom's Hardware website quotes another paywalled news site at the bottom. I see no reason to believe it isn't legit and Tom's is legit, but I don't know YOU from a hole in the ground. Here. ZDNet. No one's retracting this https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/smart-home/3-million-smart-toothbrushes-were-just-used-in-a-ddos-attack-really/ https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/kriminalitaet-die-zahnbuersten-greifen-an-das-sind-die-aktuellen-cybergefahren-und-so-koennen-sie-sich-schuetzen-ld.2569480

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     Simon (smrqdt@chaos.social)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 10:22:35 JST Simon

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog To be fair, the second paragraph states: “This example, which looks like a Hollywood scenario, really happened.”, so the original journalist already got it wrong… But funny, how a very small, local Swiss newspaper caused this.

   • Embed this notice
     Lukas (darkcisum@swiss.social)'s status on Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 17:39:20 JST Lukas

     in reply to

     @GossiTheDog As a Swiss I saw it as my duty to send the editors and author an email requesting a correction of the original article...