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Ecovacs home robots can be hacked to spy on their owners, researchers say

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 ,

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

lemmee_in OP ,

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

JudahBenHur ,

no you are not. I will not buy an internet connected anything as long as possible.

Telorand ,

I’ve seen tower fans with Wifi. Why on earth does a fan need to contact the internet?

WhatAmLemmy ,

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).

NeoNachtwaechter ,

until I can setup a cost-effective smarthome 100% offline, LAN only, managed by my own FOSS home server, I’m not gonna bother

I have that for several years now, with Tasmota devices and a Home Assistant server.

I am going one step further even: most of the logic continues to work even if the Home Assistant server is down. I just have less additional control by smartphone then, and less statistics.

Imgonnatrythis ,

With pets at home a robot camera can be kind of nice. Seems obvious that security needs to be a priority with something like that though. It’s just a shame these companies are so sloppy with it.

barsquid ,

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

Lifecoach5000 ,

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.

Wildly_Utilize ,

As someone who has never felt the need for a roomba

What so you like so much about it?

Lifecoach5000 ,

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.

Wildly_Utilize ,

Oh OK cool I didn’t realize they had self cleaning ones now. That does sound really convenient for hairy dogs

dirthawker0 ,

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.

tudor ,

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.

RegalPotoo ,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

valetudo.cloud

BlackEco ,
@BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com avatar

As a note, Dennis Giese —who is the co-author of the Defcon talk mentioned in the article— is also the author of Dustcloud, which is used as the basis of Valetudo. Though I’m not aware that Valetudo will ever support Ecovacs robots.

wewbull ,

It might now.

BlackEco , (edited )
@BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com avatar

AFAIK Hypfer (Valetudo maintainer) has no intention to support new robots other than Dreame

NeoNachtwaechter ,

You had better read their list of supported devices instead of saying such a …

BlackEco ,
@BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com avatar

I meant add support to new robots other than Dreame. On Telegram he explicitly said he won’t support any new Roborock nor Ecovacs

NeoNachtwaechter ,

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.

AlphaAutist ,

What did you end up using?

Empricorn ,

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

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

cyberpunk is supposed to be dystopian…

Brkdncr ,

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

bruhduh ,
@bruhduh@lemmy.world avatar

There’s S in IOT that stands for security

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