During an internal penetration test you discover that the organization's IoT lighting controller exposes an MQTT broker on TCP port 1883 that allows unauthenticated connections. Following a standard IoT hacking methodology, which step should you perform next to validate that the weakness leads to practical device manipulation?
Capture and decrypt Zigbee traffic between bulbs and the hub using a software-defined radio.
Publish a crafted "ON" command to the lights/room1/set topic and observe whether fixtures respond.
Query the broker for its software version to identify potential buffer-overflow exploits.
Perform a UDP service scan against port 47808 to look for exposed BACnet objects.
After confirming that the MQTT broker permits anonymous logins, the logical next phase in an IoT hacking methodology is exploitation-attempting to send commands that change the device's behavior. Publishing an "ON" message to a topic the lights subscribe to directly tests whether an attacker can influence the equipment. Merely enumerating firmware, sniffing Zigbee frames, or scanning for BACnet services gathers additional information but does not immediately demonstrate control of the vulnerable system, so they belong to other phases (enumeration or further recon) rather than direct exploitation.
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What is MQTT, and why is it commonly used in IoT devices?
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Why is testing the 'lights/room1/set' topic a viable next step in an IoT exploitation methodology?
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What are some common security risks associated with unauthenticated MQTT brokers?
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What is MQTT and why is it relevant in IoT security?
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How do IoT hacking methodologies prioritize exploitation over enumeration?
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