Malicious hackers can take over control of vacuum and lawn mower robots made by Ecovacs to spy on their owners using the devices’ cameras and microphones, new research has found.
Security researchers Dennis Giese and Braelynn are due to speak at the Def Con hacking conference on Saturday detailing their research into Ecovacs robots. When they analyzed several Ecovacs products, the two researchers found a number of issues that can be abused to hack the robots via Bluetooth and surreptitiously switch on microphones and cameras remotely.
“Their security was really, really, really, really bad,” Giese told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the talk.
The researchers said they reached out to Ecovacs to report the vulnerabilities but never heard back from the company, and believe the vulnerabilities are still not fixed and could be exploited by hackers.
Am I the only one who thinks vacuums, washing machines, fridges and so on shouldn’t be connected to the internet?
I’d like some of them to connect to my local network, but not the Internet. I’ll work it out myself from there onwards and make some remote control solution myself, thank you.
I don’t disagree, but I think automation is cool, especially if you can keep it local (or have the tools to secure it on the internet). Valetudo can help make that possible. My current robot vacuum is pretty crappy, but it doesn’t have cameras or mapping. My next will be one that has mapping and can be easily flashed with local hosting.
Flashing a dreame L10s was difficult but worth it. I’d recommend it if you have the expertise. I did end up having to buy a USB breakout board from eBay, though.
I’m not super happy about it, but my roomba is absolutely essential now that I’ve been spoiled with it. I don’t like the idea of any of my appliances being online straight tied to a vendor’s app and service - but I’m willing to accept the trade off in this instance. Maybe someday I’ll upgrade to a different robot vac. I know there are FOSS setups to work around some of those challenges and circumvent some of the BS.
As someone who has never felt the need for a roomba
What so you like so much about it?
I dispise vacuuming and sweeping and I have 2 canines, so there’s a lot of fur and grime on the floor that needs regular tending to. I bought the roomba model that is self charging and self emptying, so you can just let it run in a set it and forget it fashion.
Alternatively, it also actually helps motivate me to do other chores as well. I have to pick up everything off the floor before running the vac, and at that point I just start tidying up other things while letting it run.
I hate lugging around that heavy noisy thing, and I don’t have pets. I’m a bit shocked at how much hair two humans drop in a week. The robovac runs twice a week and I empty it once a week, and it keeps the more open/obvious spaces looking pretty pristine. Dust on a shiny floor really shows. There are places where it cannot go and those need to be done by me, but they’re less visible areas so no need for frequent vacuuming.
no you are not. I will not buy an internet connected anything as long as possible.
I’ve seen tower fans with Wifi. Why on earth does a fan need to contact the internet?
Ecovacs app is garbage and has not improved much in years so this doesn’t surprise me.
This is incredible. I mean it’s dystopian and bad… But it’s also cyberpunk as fuck.
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There’s S in IOT that stands for security
For some robtos there seems to be a self hosted version of the servers available. Though I haven’t found the actual installation guide yet.
Good to know.
But does it disable these current security holes?
hackers can take over control of vacuum and lawn mower robots made by Ecovacs to spy on their owners using the devices’ cameras and microphones
Honestly, did anyone believe that this wouldn’t happen, sooner or later?
When I bought me such a device, I made sure that I would be able to install a cloud-free firmware on it. First thing. Before I wanted to use it at all.
What did you end up using?
Dreame D10S Plus
