Robots: Lots of features, not much security

Minimalist · Apr 8, 2017

Robots are supposed to do good things for us, not bad things to us.

But there is plenty of evidence that, like the billions of other connected devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT), the growth of robot technology is coming with loads of features, but not much of a security blanket.

More evidence came in a report on home, business and industrial robots released last month by security research firm IOActive, which found that “most” of them lacked what experts generally call “basic security hygiene.”
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http://www.cio.com/article/3188175/security/robots-lots-of-features-not-much-security.html

Minimalist · Apr 11, 2017

After Robots Take Over Our Jobs, Then What?

After robots take over our jobs, what is next? Guaranteed incomes? A public service job creation program? More conferences on “the future of work”?

Today, not a week goes by without a new study being released or conference convened on robots replacing jobs or a newspaper account of a new use of robots taking the place of workers (this week Domino’s Pizza announced it was using robots to deliver pizzas in Europe). In turn, the subject has come center stage in meetings of education and workforce professionals. At the March meeting of the California Workforce Development Board (CWDB), for example, several board members asked whether California state government was lagging in its policy responses to and its recognition of job loss through automation.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbernick/2017/04/11/after-robots-take-over-our-jobs-then-what

Minimalist · Apr 23, 2017

Robots are like babies – as they learn from us they start teaching themselves

Curiously, this is not so out of line with how the human mind works, as a recent - and increasingly influential - line of thinking in cognitive science contends. Called predictive processing, or more simply, the predictive brain2, the basic idea is that rather than a passive receptacle for the outside world that's waiting to process the raw data that comes in, the brain is an active, Bayesian machine. It is generating inferences about that world and shaping how we perceive it.
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http://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-tech-knows-best

Minimalist · May 3, 2017

Watch An Industrial Robot Get Hacked, Ruining A 3D-Printed Drone

It's becoming increasingly apparent that industrial robots can be hacked and the potential for catastrophe is real. Today, researchers from Trend Micro and Politecnico di Milano hammered home the point with a proof-of-concept hack in which they remotely controlled a robotic arm drawing up designs for a drone.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...rs-hack-industrial-robot-making-a-drone-rotor

EDIT: additional similar article: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/05/03/hacking-industrial-robots/

mirimir · May 3, 2017

In one of Greg Egan's novels, a mobile construction robot gets hacked by terrorists, and does bad things. Imagine combat robots getting hacked.

Minimalist · Aug 1, 2017

Robot Safecracking

Robots can crack safes faster than humans -- and differently:
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https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/07/robot_safecrack.html

EASTER · Aug 1, 2017

mirimir said: ↑

In one of Greg Egan's novels, a mobile construction robot gets hacked by terrorists, and does bad things. Imagine combat robots getting hacked.
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An industrial company I worked for lost a maintenance worker to a carbon steel punching robotic system simply because machines do not stop for people while carrying out commands unless there are electronic eyes in place (lines of Keep Away) to prevent such industrial hazards.

If combat robotics can be so easily made to be hacked and recoded on the fly (like windows) they can be instructed to do bad things pure and simple.

Minimalist · Aug 21, 2017

Elon Musk Leads 115 AI Founders & Experts to Call for a Complete Ban of “Killer Robots”

Elon Musk along with 115 leading Artificial Intelligence and robotic experts from over 26 countries have joined together to call on the United Nations to ban the development and use of autonomous weapons. These weapons, also being called “killer robots,” include drones, tanks, autonomous machine guns, and other forms of AI controlled weaponry.
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http://wccftech.com/elon-musk-ai-un-ban-killer-robots/

Minimalist · Aug 22, 2017

Hacked robots can be a deadly insider threat

IOActive researchers have probed the security of a number of humanoid home and business robots as well industrial collaborative robots, and have found it seriously wanting.

A slew of vulnerabilities – authentication/authorization issues and bypasses, insecure transport of data and firmware update mechanisms, undocumented methods, hard-coded passwords, unencrypted storage, easily disabled human safety protections – can be exploited to allow attackers to spy on users, hijack the robots, brick them and, what’s even worse, injure humans around them.
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https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/08/22/hacked-robots-insider-threat/

Minimalist · Aug 22, 2017

Watch hackers hijack three robots for spying and sabotage

The entire corpus of science fiction has trained humanity to fear the day when helpful household and industrial robots turn against it, in a Skynet-style uprising. But a much more near-term threat lurks in the age of automation: not that anthropomorphic gadgets will develop minds of their own, but that a very human hacker will take control of them.
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https://www.wired.com/story/watch-robot-hacks-spy-sabotage

Minimalist · Mar 27, 2018

A robot’s ransom

Like most electronic stuff, robots are not immune to cybercriminals. Last year, researchers at IOActive detected as many as 50 vulnerabilities in robots developed by the Japanese firm SoftBank. They informed the manufacturer but never heard back. So this year at the Security Analyst Summit 2018, they decided to demonstrate what can happen if a robot gets hacked.
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https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/hacking-robots-sas2018

guest · May 29, 2018

Softbank's 'Pepper' robot is a security joke
Big-in-Japan 'bot offers root access through hard-coded password and worse bugs too
May 29, 2018
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/29/softbank_pepper_robot_multiple_basic_security_flaws/

The 'bot allows unauthenticated root-level access, runs a Meltdown/Spectre-vulnerable processor, can be administered over unencrypted HTTP and has a default root password.

Their research found that “it is a breeze to remotely turn it into a 'cyber and physical weapon', exposing malicious behaviours”.
A sorry list of vulns
The Meltdown/Spectre vulnerability was trivially identified, since all they needed was the uname -a terminal command.
A bit of Ettercap and Wireshark work revealed that the admin page is unsecured, which leaves naked the user/password pair of the only user account offered, called nao.

An attacker able to communicate with Pepper over TCP could use the cameras and microphones to spy on people and conversations; could remotely interact with people (for example, to trick them into providing personal information); use Pepper as an attack robot;
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mirimir · May 29, 2018

Even worse, exploitable Skynet

Minimalist · Sep 17, 2018

By 2025, Machines Will Do More Work Than Humans, a New Report Says

There’s one number that people forget to talk about when bemoaning the imminent robot apocalypse.

It’s not the number of seconds it takes a robot to solve a Rubix cube (.38) or the number of hours it takes to train an algorithm to detect cancer (we did it in two!).

It’s the number of jobs that will be created with the rise of intelligent machines.
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https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-te...l-do-more-work-humans-new-report-says/151317/

Minimalist · Oct 8, 2018

Groundbreaking maker of gentle factory robots shuts down

Back in 2014, we wrote about Baxter, an anthropomorphic factory robot that was gentle enough to work alongside human workers. We visited Baxter at a robotics trade show in New York, and it seemed like the company was getting a lot of interest from potential customers. Unfortunately, we learned last week that Rethink Robotics, the company behind Baxter, is shutting down.
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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ng-maker-of-gentle-factory-robots-shuts-down/

guest · Oct 18, 2018

Flaws in telepresence robots allow hackers access to pictures, video feeds
October 18, 2018
https://www.zdnet.com/article/flaws...allow-hackers-access-to-pictures-video-feeds/

Telepresence robots from Vecna Technologies can be hacked using a suite of five vulnerabilities. The flaws can be combined to allow an attacker full control over a robot, giving an intruder the capability to alter firmware, steal chat logs, pictures, or even access live video streams.

The vulnerabilities affect Vecna VGo Celia, a telepresence robot that can be deployed in the field but controlled from a remote location. Telepresence robots are equipped with both a microphone and a video camera and sit on movable rigs.

They are usually found in hospitals, to allow doctors to interview patients from afar, in schools, to allow sick children to attend classes or professors to give classes while on the road, or in factories to allow technical inspections from authorized personnel.

"Because the robot performs firmware updates over HTTP, an attacker with access to the same network segment where the robot is connected can intercept the update," said Regalado in a research paper published this week. [...]
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CVE-2018-8858: Insufficiently Protected Credentials - Wi-Fi, XMPP - Patch Pending

CVE-2018-8860: Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information - Firmware - Patched

CVE-2018-8866: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements - RCE - Patched

CVE-2018-17931: Improper Access Control (USB) - Patch Pending

CVE-2018-17933: Improper Authorization (XMPP Client) - Patch Pending

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Research paper (PDF): http://go.zingbox.com/rs/562-ZPO-907/images/Zingbox%20Whitepaper%20-%20Telepresence%20Robot%20Vulnerabilities.pdf

guest · Oct 24, 2019

Robots at HIS Group are vulnerable to hack
The Japanese hotel chain HIS Group admitted that its in-room robots were vulnerable
October 23, 2019
https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/92870/hacking/robots-vulnerable-to-hack.html

The personnel at the Henn na Hotel managed by the Japanese hotel chain HIS Group is composed of robots that provide hospitality services to the guests.
The HIS Group hotel chain has 10 locations in Japan that used robots instead of human personnel to provide some services.

On October 12, 2019, the researcher Lance R. Vick (@lrvick) revealed that he reported a zero-day flaw in the robots to the company in July, but he was ignored by the HIS Group.
The expert discovered an “unsigned code” that could allow an attacker to access video footage via the streaming app of their choice by tapping an NFC tag to the back of robot’s head.

The bed facing Tapia robot deployed at the famous Robot Hotels in Japan can be converted to offer anyone remote camera/mic access to all future guests.
[...] — Lance R. Vick (@lrvick) October 12, 2019

This was not the first time that the Tapia robots used by the hotel chain made the headlines. On July 6, the company was informed by a guest about a security flaw affecting this model of robots.
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