A US-based IT specialist and Prusa employee, known online as Nomad, reported that his parents’ connected Keurig coffee machine generated around 1TB of network traffic in ten days.
Investigating their slow Wi-Fi, he found monitoring figures showing 1,008GB transmitted by the machine over ten days and nine hours.
He later said most traffic stayed within the home network and suspected a software fault. The cause remains unconfirmed, with no established evidence of hacking or data theft.
However, connected appliances can also be compromised. Separately, the FBI has warned that the BADBOX 2.0 botnet uses infected smart devices to route criminal activity through household internet connections.
Businesses should monitor appliance traffic, install updates and keep smart devices separate from sensitive systems. Unnecessary connectivity should be disabled, with unusual activity investigated promptly.