The FBI’s cyber division has issued an alert urging individuals with smart gadgets to remain vigilant against a stealthy scam that stealthily siphons off funds and commandeers your internet connection.

The agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has identified three critical indicators that cybercriminals may have infiltrated common household devices like smart TVs, security cameras, thermostats, refrigerators, fitness trackers, and even children’s toys.

These warning signs include a sudden surge in your internet data consumption, unexpected hikes in internet charges, and an unexplained slowdown in your device’s WiFi connection.

In a recent notice, the FBI stated, “Cyber actors are actively seeking and compromising vulnerable Internet of Things (IoT) devices to use as proxies or intermediaries for internet requests, routing malicious traffic for cyber-attacks and computer network exploitation.”

In essence, the US intelligence community has long been aware that hackers target and covertly commandeer poorly secured smart home devices, disguising their illicit activities as originating from your residence instead of their own.

The presence of these three indicators suggests that your devices may have been compromised and integrated into a “botnet”—a clandestine network of infected devices under the remote control of cybercriminals.

The device is no longer just working for you. It is secretly working for criminals in the background, which causes them to interact with the internet at all hours of the day.

The fastest ways to defend against these hijackings is to restart your devices and routers regularly, change all default passwords when you activate a new device, stay up to date on the latest software patches for your device and keep track of how much data you use monthly.

The FBI has warned that any smart device, includes phones, could be targeted by hackers exploiting simple flaws and weaknesses in modern tech (Stock Image)

According to the FBI, hackers do not need smart device owners to click on phishing email or download suspicious links to break into certain gadgets.

Many devices connected to your internet signal come with an easy-to-guess default password, such as ‘admin’ or ‘1234,’ that the owners forget to change. 

For other devices, including smartphones, the software, known as firmware, can become outdated over time, creating security holes hackers exploit to gain access to your phone.

Some phones or smartphone operating systems actually leave the factory with hidden security flaws that were not discovered by their makers, like Apple or Samsung, called zero-day vulnerabilities.

These entry points into digital tech give cybercriminals access to even the newest devices on the market until their designers create a security update to fix the hidden backdoors within the software.

As for the warning signs, the FBI said that the first sign a smart device has been compromised is the amount of data your devices consume each month.

Malware infecting a device forces it to send or receive massive amounts of traffic from spam emails, attacks on other websites or from chatting with the hackers’ command servers.

All this hidden activity routes through your internet connection and IP address, giving the criminals anonymity and running up your data usage.

Cybercriminals hack into smart devices to make it appear their attacks on other sites are coming from the victim’s device, not their own (Stock Image)

The second sign something is wrong immediately follows the victim’s data usage going up – their internet bill may also increase.

If you see an unexpectedly large internet bill, especially if your provider charges extra for high data use, the FBI said owners should disconnect the suspicious device and report it to the FBI’s IC3 website.

The third key sign can often be overlooked as having a bad connection, but experts warn that devices running slowly can be a red flag that cybercriminals are lurking in the gadget’s software.

Malware placed in the device constantly uses up your device’s processing power, memory and bandwidth.

Essentially, your gadget is running a marathon in the background while pretending everything is normal. This makes the device, and sometimes the entire home WiFi connection, feel slow or unresponsive.

‘Reboot devices regularly, as most malware is stored in memory and removed upon a device reboot. It is important to do this regularly as many actors compete for the same pool of devices and use automated scripts to identify vulnerabilities and infect devices,’ the FBI explained.