Ecovacs home robots can be hacked to spy on their owners, researchers say | TechCrunch
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Researchers found flaws that could allow anyone to spy on the owners of Ecovacs home robots by hijacking their cameras and microphones.

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.

  • zaphod@sopuli.xyzEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Am I the only one who thinks vacuums, washing machines, fridges and so on shouldn’t be connected to the internet?

    • barsquid@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 months ago

      I keep asking this in comments around this kind of article. People are like, “it’s convenient though.”

    • lemme in@lemm.eeOPEnglish
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      2 months ago

      I don’t even have a smart tv, I don’t want anything other than my phone and laptop connected to the internet.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          2 months ago

          Most smarthome products are only worthwhile if they’re coupled with other devices in IFTTT style workflows. Like a morning routine where lights come on, the blinds open, and your playlist starts when you fist bump the air or yell “still alive”. A fan is stupid because you can control most fans from a smart plug, but a fan could come in handy for a grow operation, to maintain a level of humidity or whatever; coupled with a smart hygrometer/thermometer, irrigation, and server.

          The problem is capitalism — every company tried to create their own walled gardens out of pure greed, so nobody except rich morons were willing to commit to automating their lives with a product/brand/platform that may not exist tomorrow, and won’t work with any other brand/platforms products, so all they’ve done is collectively hamstrung the entire markets growth, and created mountains of e-waste. Things are starting to move in a better direction, but until I can setup a cost-effective smarthome 100% offline, LAN only, managed by my own FOSS home server, I’m not gonna bother with anything more than a few standalone devices (e.g. pet-cam, mood lighting, etc).

    • tudor@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.caEnglish
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      2 months ago

      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.

  • Ravi@feddit.orgEnglish
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    2 months ago

    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.

    Reference

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 months ago

    Ecovacs app is garbage and has not improved much in years so this doesn’t surprise me.

  • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
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    2 months ago

    This is incredible. I mean it’s dystopian and bad… But it’s also cyberpunk as fuck.