Prevent Your Home Robot From Being Hacked!

Commercial, tele-operated home robots are vulnerable to hacking and leave users open to potential risk, according to a recent paper by researchers at the University of Washington.

Tele-operated robots let users remotely interact in the physical world through them, usually through a wireless connection (think of a primitive form of the robots in The Surrogates). Equipped with wheels, cameras, microphones and speakers, ‘tele-presence’ robots stream audio and visual information from the home or office so a user can check the

home or office while away to say, chat with children or scold a misbehaving pet.

The researchers found security vulnerabilities in 2008 models of the Erector Spykee (left), and WowWee’s RoboSapien and smaller Rovio. They say on their website that these vulnerabilities could let a hacker hijack the house robot to look around the house, listen in on conversations, take pictures, or knock over objects.

To protected one’s self from this risk, the researchers recommend keeping networks and robot control encrypted, avoiding remote access, and turning off the robots when they’re not in use