Hackers just made history with the biggest attack of its kind

Impact

All it takes is a skilled hacker to render a smart house dumb as hell. 

Last week, French cloud computing company OVH was hit with Distributed Denial of Service attacks that exceeded one terabit per second, the Hacker News reported, which it notes is the "largest DDoS attack ever reported."

The founder of the company, Octave Klaba, tweeted a screenshot of the two simultaneous DDoS attacks, revealing multiple attacks surpassing 100 gigabits per second and one alone hitting 799 gigabits per second.

A DDoS attack occurs when botnets flood servers in an effort to overwhelm them, making them unusable. A DDoS attack on a cloud computing company serving internet-connected devices is like flipping the off-switch on all of your smart gadgets. 

This attack is bad news for those looking to connect every conceivable device to the internet. The options are seemingly endless — there are internet-connected lights, locks, refrigerators, televisions, home security systems, cars, toasters, coffeemakers, speakers, smart home hubs, air quality monitors, air conditioning units, smoke alarms, herb gardens, thermostats, beds, sprinkler systems, baby onesies, doorbells, window blinds, shower heads, household robots, air purifiers ... you get it. Your house can have a mind of its own, and that mind is vulnerable to malicious hackers and bugs. 

I bet analog never sounded so sweet.