A team of researchers has seemingly established that commonly used robotic vacuum cleaners can be hacked remotely and used as a microphone. The research group led by Nirupam Roy, an assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland in collaboration with assistant professor Jun Han of the University of Singapore, collected information from the laser-based navigation system in a vacuum robot and applied signal processing and deep learning techniques to recover speech and identify television programs playing in the same room where the device was operating.
This research has highlighted the potential for any such device that uses light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology to be manipulated as a monitoring device by transmitting sound, even when such devices do not have a microphone. The revealing work was presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2020) last month.
The Lidar navigation systems in household robot vacuum cleaners direct a laser beam around the room whose reflected signals are used to map the room, enabling the robot to navigate through the room without collisions.
It has been suggested that these maps, stored in the cloud most times, pose potential security and privacy breaches that could give unauthorized access to privacy data amidst the risks of hacking. Information about things such as home size and other privileged data could be easily accessible. The research team was of the view that Lidar could pose potential security risks in transforming the robots as sound recording devices in users’ homes or businesses.
The researchers were not quite definitive whether a vacuum robot’s Lidar system could be manipulated to operate as a mic capable of providing meaningful sound signals.
The researchers were of the opinion that their research with vacuum cleaners is just one example of potential vulnerability to Lidar-based espionage activities. Many other devices such as smartphones are also susceptible. Recall how a hacker invaded a US home through the Ring security camera system demanding bitcoin. Other cases abound of similar occurrences. (via)
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