All those concerns about the security of a world of connected IoT devices just got very real indeed.

It has emerged that hackers used webcams and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices to marshal a wave of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks Friday against Dyn, a company that manages Internet domain name hosting services (DNS). This in turn took down prominent websites like Twitter and Spotify, amongst others. (See Attacks Have Major Internet Sites on the Ropes.)

In fact, one Chinese manufacturer -- Hangzhou Xiongmai -- has already issued a recall because its web cameras were involved in the attacks. The webcams used a default password, which made it easy for the hackers to take them over.

For all the latest news on the Internet of Things, visit the IoT page here on Light Reading.

The manufacturer, however, told the BCC that it was not the only one to blame for the outages.

Security concerns about an Internet of Things, where myriad devices are connected to the web, are becoming more prevalent. Connected cameras are emerging as a potential pain point for IoT, but they are by no means the only device vulnerable to potential hacks in the smart home or city. (See IoT Security Is Not a Technological Challenge – It's an Economic One.)

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading