Smart Dust: Malware From the Future?
In the future, security professionals may be confronted by “smart dust” information stealing threats, according to a futurologist. Ian Pearson says the “smart dust” will be a major threat in the future.
In a Futurizon report commissioned by Fujitsu, Pearson writes that small drops of dust will be dropped into office equipment which will be used to intercept data.
“Tiny specks of smart dust dropped through ventilation grills on office equipment will allow interception of data before it even gets to an encryption device,” he writes. “Slightly ‘cleverer’ smart dust could even allow documents to be subtly altered while they are being printed.”
A senior technology consultant at Sophos, Graham Cluley, says Pearson’s views seem more fixated on grabbing headlines than providing adequate predictions of future threats.
“What are we supposed to do make microscopic barrage balloons?” Cluley said. “He doesn’t explain how this smart dust would work. It’s not very useful.”
Instead, he sees the future threat as being more malware that is similar to current models.
“The inventiveness has gone out of malware creation,” he said.