Some of the most popular industrial and consumer robots\u00a0are dangerously easy to hack and could be turned into bugging devices or weapons, IOActive Inc. said.<\/p>\n
The Seattle-based\u00a0cybersecurity\u00a0firm\u00a0found major security flaws in\u00a0industrial models sold by Universal Robots, a division of U.S. technology company Teradyne Inc.\u00a0It also cited issues with\u00a0consumer robots Pepper and NAO, which are manufactured by Japan\u2019s Softbank\u00a0Group Corp., and the Alpha 1 and Alpha 2 made by China-based UBTech\u00a0Robotics.<\/p>\n
These vulnerabilities could allow the robots to be turned into surveillance devices, surreptitiously spying on their owners, or let them\u00a0to be hijacked and used to physically harm people or damage property, the researchers wrote\u00a0in a report released Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Universal Robots\u2019s devices are designed to work directly alongside humans without being confined to a cage for safety,\u00a0as with many other industrial models. But IOActive was able to remotely hack\u00a0the software that controls the robot and disable key safety features. This could result in them\u00a0being programmed to injure the humans around them.<\/p>\n
This is particularly worrying, IOActive said, because these machines are large enough and have enough power that \u201ceven running at low speeds, their force is more than sufficient to cause a skull fracture.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the robots intended for home use \u2013\u00a0SoftBank\u2019s Pepper and NAO \u00a0\u2013\u00a0IOActive found that cyberattackers\u00a0could use them to record audio and video and secretly transmit this data\u00a0to an external server. UBTech\u2019s Alpha series home robots did not encrypt sensitive information they captured before storing or transmitting it, opening an avenue for cybercriminals to potentially steal important personal information, IOActive said.<\/p>\n
As with the Universal Robots machines, these home robots could also be made to carry out physical attacks. Although they are much less powerful than the industrial models from Universal Robots, IOActive\u00a0released a video of a test in which an otherwise cute NAO robot\u00a0suddenly begins laughing in an evil and maniacal way and uses\u00a0a\u00a0screwdriver to repeatedly stab a tomato. While the video is clearly intended to be humorous, IOActive\u2019s researchers said it had a serious intent: one could imagine the robot potentially launching a similar attack against an infant, toddler or pet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we know about these vulnerabilities, chances are that we\u2019re not the only ones,\u201d Lucas Apa, principal security consultant at IOActive, wrote in an e-mail.<\/p>\n
Universal Robots spokesman Thomas Stensbol said the company was aware of IOActive’s report. \u201cWe have a constant focus on our product improvement and industrial hardening for the sake of our customers,\u201d\u00a0he wrote in an e-mailed statement. \u201cThis includes monitoring any potential vulnerability, not just cyber-security.” He said the company’s products “undergo rigorous safety certification.\u201d<\/p>\n
SoftBank\u00a0spokesman Vincent Samuel said the company would provide a response to IOActive\u2019s report but it had not done so as of press time. UBTech didn\u2019t respond to requests to comment on IOActive\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n
Apa said that SoftBank had told IOActive that it planned to issue patches to address security flaws the researchers found, but that no fixes had been released yet.<\/p>\n
IOActive issued an initial report highlighting many of these vulnerabilities in March but withheld the specific techniques used to hack into the software that controls the robots in order to give manufacturers time to fix flaws. On Tuesday, the cybersecurity firm made technical\u00a0details of the hacks public.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe contacted all the vendors in January but sadly there\u2019s little to suggest that the 50-plus vulnerabilities we demonstrated have been fixed,\u201d Apa said. \u201cMost vendors were not forthcoming when we contacted them in private, so going public was the only option left available to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apa said the intent was to make the public aware of the risks and prod the manufacturers to fix the security flaws.<\/p>\n
He said IOActive wanted to highlight the need for robotics companies to think about cybersecurity\u00a0at every stage of their design process. \u201cThese are early days for the robotics industry, but as it grows, we want to make sure it has a more secure future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Some of the most popular industrial and consumer robots\u00a0are dangerously easy to hack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":201374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[14575,6266],"class_list":["post-225532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-hack","tag-robot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225536,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225532\/revisions\/225536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}