[maeln]

If you want to do some fun hacking project, Temu and similar websites are a trove of insecure cheap IoT devices made with almost 0 security consideration. Security camera, car chargers, sport tracking devices, etc.

If you are a bad actor, that is also probably a very easy way to find new ways to enroll devices in your botnet.

[porshia]

So many of them are hosting some sort of server they /have/ to talk back to. Wouldn't be so bad if they just acted entirely self contained...

So the question is, what is the vendors benefit from running these servers.

[vachina]

I think they’re more secure by the virtue of being niche. Nobody will build an exploit chain to sniff for and target these devices.

[maeln]

By the virtue of being cheap garbage, they actually sell very well and can be found quite a lot in the wild. So they are not that niche.