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.

  • BlackEcoEnglish
    7•3 months ago

    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.

      • BlackEcoEnglish
        0•3 months ago

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

        • @NeoNachtwaechterEnglish
          1•3 months ago

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

          • BlackEcoEnglish
            1•3 months ago

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