[…] hackers gained control of the devices and used the onboard speakers to blast racial slurs at anyone within earshot. One such person was a lawyer from Minnesota named Daniel Swenson. He was watching TV when he heard some odd noises coming from the direction of his vacuum. He changed the password and restarted it. But then the odd sounds started up again. And then it started shouting racial slurs at him like a surly disgruntled maid.
The attacks are apparently quite easy to pull off thanks to several known security vulnerabilities in Ecovacs, like a bad Bluetooth connector and a defective PIN system that is intended to safeguard video feeds and remote access but actually doesn’t do any of that at all.
A pair of cybersecurity researchers released a report on Ecovacs detailing the brand’s multiple security flaws earlier this year. The company, it appears, has not yet addressed all of its critical issues—nor do they seem to believe that their vacuums are even capable of being hacked, at least according to that owner Daniel Swenson, who says that the company’s customer support didn’t believe him when he said his vacuum was shouting the N-word at him.
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Source: Robot Vacuums Hacked to Shout Slurs at Their Owners
Robin Edgar
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