Thursday, October 08, 2009
Home Robots May be the Next Target for Hackers
Surveillance bots could be turned against their users, researchers say.
By Kristina Grifantini
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.
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MATR
10/09/2009
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10/13/2009
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10/19/2009
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