> "Why would anyone want to interfere with my equipment?"
Oh yes, this sounds way too familiar. "Why would anyone want to hack my system?" - pretty much most people I talked to about IT security, between circa 2000 and 2010, give or take a few years.
> My only hypothetical case is systematic crop failure due to poor irrigation associated with futures markets that depend on yields.
Besides stock market manipulation, ransomware and warfare, any 12 year old who discovers shodan.io or mass-scan can potentially stumble over some Internet exposed, remote control interface. A random 12 year old will go ahead and destroy stuff simply because that's cool or whatever, without thinking twice about it. Source: Just ask anybody who has ever been talked into doing IT at a school.
As you also said, it's hard to guess what motivations someone might have. And when you connect some device to the Internet, you are actually connecting the Internet to the device. Seems to be an often overlooked issue with IoT or smart-somethings.
The average person does not understand that hooking up a device to the internet is like moving into a unlit, unregulated, unpoliced neighborhood. Shady people could come knocking at your door with heavy weapons, and you had better have ample and up-to-date defenses already in place or they are coming in for a visit.
Oh yes, this sounds way too familiar. "Why would anyone want to hack my system?" - pretty much most people I talked to about IT security, between circa 2000 and 2010, give or take a few years.
> My only hypothetical case is systematic crop failure due to poor irrigation associated with futures markets that depend on yields.
Besides stock market manipulation, ransomware and warfare, any 12 year old who discovers shodan.io or mass-scan can potentially stumble over some Internet exposed, remote control interface. A random 12 year old will go ahead and destroy stuff simply because that's cool or whatever, without thinking twice about it. Source: Just ask anybody who has ever been talked into doing IT at a school.
As you also said, it's hard to guess what motivations someone might have. And when you connect some device to the Internet, you are actually connecting the Internet to the device. Seems to be an often overlooked issue with IoT or smart-somethings.