Home robots can easily be hacked to cause damage

More and more companies are launching home robots but unfortunately, as with almost all Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the security of these devices is often sub-par. Security researchers from IOActive did a case study and found that home robots can not only be turned into surveillance devices but can also be remotely controlled to harm humans or cause damage to property.

In the clip below, you can see how a hacked UBTech Robotics Alpha 2 robot stabs a tomato with a screwdriver. Additionally, the security researchers were also able to compromise much more powerful industrial robot arms from Universal Robotics:

This required the hijackers to have access to the same network as the robot (or to be able to physically tamper with it), but being able to control such a bot could have disastrous effects. As IOActive told Bloomberg, Universal Robotics’ creations are powerful enough that, “even running at low speeds, their force is more than sufficient to cause a skull fracture.”

Full details at The Verge.