Don't Worry, Your Smart Toothbrush Didn't Get Hacked

A viral story claiming 3M toothbrushes were breached appears to have been a translation miscue
By Gina Carey,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 18, 2024 8:00 AM CST
Don't Worry, Your Smart Toothbrush Didn't Get Hacked
Our toothbrushes are safe, it turns out.   (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz)

If someone recently forwarded you an article saying your smart toothbrush was hacked, you are far from alone in a story that grew and stuck like ... plaque? First off, no, your toothbrush was not hacked. Second, many got this one wrong, including news outlets that published retractions following what Wired is calling a "cyber urban legend" that was swiftly debunked. Here's the scoop:

  • The curious case of the hacked toothbrushes story starts with Swiss paper Aargauer Zeitung reporting that 3 million smart toothbrushes were infected with malware as part of a widespread cyberattack.
  • As news outlets picked up the story, cyber experts asked for the receipts. The Swiss paper cited Switzerland's Stefan Züger of Fortinet as its source—Fortinet is a cybersecurity company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California—and the company blamed a translation problem for the gaffe. It said the example of the hacked toothbrushes was supposed to be hypothetical, per Forbes, which has a timeline of how the story unfolded.
  • Aargauer Zeitung shot back next, asserting that Fortinet had reviewed the original article and provided "concrete details" of the cyberattack. No such attack occurred, however.
  • Over at Axios, Sam Sabin sees the story as a warning to read clicky pieces on internet safety with a degree of caution.

  • The types of theoretical cyberattacks at the focus of the story—distributed denial-of-service or DDoS attacks—use botnets to do their dirty work. If you need a refresher, Tech Target has a decent explainer on what botnets are, and how to keep your toothbrush from becoming one.
(More DDoS stories.)

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