Hi.
I am afraid that the ESP8266 is that cheap, because it could be a part for a giant hardware botnet.
What do you think about that?
How is that different than all other network card out there with closed firmware?
Highly unlikely. The botnet operator would first have to modify the code to make it part of his botnet. Windows computers are far easier to manipulate to become part of a botnet.
The difference is that these devices will be hidden. If someone uses it for DDOS or Spam and my provider is telling me about that, it would be the last thing I would disable. First are my computer, tablet, smartphone…
I dont think that the device will be hacked or remote programmed after programming it with own code, but that there is a hidden part of the system that could not be overwritten and this part can register to the botnet and do the crazy stuff.
I have heard about water boiler and irons that search for open wifi to send spam. The problem is that most wifis are secured. But not for the esp because we connect it.