Several robotic vacuum cleaners have been hacked in a number of US cities over the course of just a few days. The hacker took control of the devices and shouted obscenities through the built-in speakers.
Daniel Swenson, a Minnesota lawyer, discovered through the Ecovacs app that an outsider had control of his family’s robot vacuum cleaner. Swenson initially brushed it off as a technical issue, resetting his password and rebooting the device. Shortly after, though, the robot began operating on its own, spewing racist slurs in front of the family’s 13-year-old son.
– I got the impression it was a kid, maybe a teenager [speaking], Swenson told ABC. Maybe they were just jumping from device to device messing with families.
In Los Angeles, a robotic vacuum was hacked and began chasing a family’s dog around the house while shouting abusive remarks. Similarly, in El Paso, another unit started spewing racial slurs at the household.
Unclear scope
The robot vacuums also have cameras attached, and Swenson says he’s glad the hacker actually made himself known and didn’t silently observe the family.
– It was a shock, he says, and then it was like almost fear, disgust.
The affected devices are the Chinese-made Ecovacs Deebot X2s model, but it is unclear how many devices were affected. Swenson called the company’s support and was told that there was a “high possibility” that his account was affected by a cyberattack.
According to the company, “no evidence” has been found that the accounts were hacked through “any breach of Ecovac’s systems”.
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