TR Editors' blog

Home Robots May be the Next Target for Hackers

Surveillance bots could be turned against their users, researchers say.

Kristina Grifantini 10/08/2009

  • 3 Comments

A paper published recently by researchers at the University of Washington shows that several commercial home robots--essentially small, wheeled bots with cameras, microphones and other audio-visual surveillance features--are not as secure as their owners might think. The researchers studied 2008 models of the Erector Spykee, and WowWee's RoboSapien and Rovio robots and found security holes that include unencrypted audio-visual streams, unencrypted usernames and passwords for accessing and controlling the bots, and tricks for taking over the robots remotely.

The researchers say on their website:

[These vulnerabilities] mean that someone might be able to drive your robot around your home, look around the house, listen in on conversations, and knock over small objects.

Since few people have personal robots it's hardly a major threat. But the researchers point out that better security and privacy safety measures will need to be taken as home robots become more common. To stay protected, they recommend keeping networks and robot control encrypted, avoiding remote access, and turning off the robots when they're not in use.

Print

Close Comments

To comment, please sign in or register

Forgot my password

MATR

90 Comments

  • 852 Days Ago
  • 10/09/2009

Absurdities Abound

You would think that at this point manufacturer's of security oriented products would *get* the idea that they have to use encryption.  It's increadible that the companies that created these products declined to think of that.  Increadible.  Those companies really do deserve to fail, while other, ever so slightly more intelligent developers should succeed.  Home security bots makes sense.  But making them so that drive by hackers can access them?  Wow.  It's ... unbelievable.

Reply

sleepinggiant

1 Comment

  • 848 Days Ago
  • 10/13/2009

No Surprise

I'm not a software developer but feel confident that the  lack of encryption was a question of how initial requirements were established and development costs associated with the products.

Reply

FSZ

1 Comment

  • 842 Days Ago
  • 10/19/2009

Optimistic view

We, a group of computer scientists, believe that although no system can be completely secure, security will keep pace with development. Release cycles should highlight and solve any security problems, assuming that there is sufficient financial investment.

Reply

About

Insights, opinions, and our editors' analysis of the latest in emerging technologies.

Subscribe to the TR Editors' blog RSS Feed

Advertisement
Advertisement

Facebook

Advertisement