Tim Nottoli, Walsh Construction’s chief information officer, has seen Google’s Nest and Amazon’s Ring cameras brought onto the company’s construction sites and has dealt with every type of sensor used properly and improperly on the company’s network. But recently, he uncovered a network vulnerability inside a construction trailer that wasn’t connected to any computer system he’d encountered before.
“We actually had somebody plug in a coffee maker that was broadcasting to the internet,” Nottoli says. “The vendor they were buying it from wanted to be able to let it call home to tell them that they are running low on beans and supplies. I’m not joking, it was a vendor with a coffee maker talking to the internet.” The vendor set up the coffee maker to use Walsh’s guest network to connect online, and hadn’t thought to mention it to anyone in the IT department.