internet of things (IoT)

The internet of things refers to an insecure global network of devices
connected to the internet. After three decades the familiar personal
computing market had been thoroughly saturated but the internet continued
to expand beyond its early scope into embedded systems typically having
a single dedicated purpose, such as electricity meters, thermostats,
television set-top boxes and childrens toys. The ultra low cost of many
of these gadgets together with the lack of any incentive to supply them
with after-market security updates meant that large parts of the IoT
rapidly turned into a chaotic swamp of botnets periodically pushing out
DDoS attacks against flavor-of-the-week adversaries as botmasters
jockeyed for control of the networks.