ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A Spanish software engineer inadvertently became the controller of thousands of robot vacuum cleaners around the world after attempting to control his own machine with a PlayStation?5.

Sammy Azdoufal from Barcelona used a makeshift remote control app to experiment with his robot vacuum's controls. But the app quickly started communicating with the manufacturer's servers and Azdoufal found himself in control of around 7,000 machines.

Azdoufal, who is head of IT at a holiday rental company, was then able to remotely control the other vacuums and listen through their live camera feeds. He could gather messages and watch them map out rooms in the houses where they were located, generating 2-D floor plans.

He could also use the robots' IP addresses to discover their approximate location.
"I found my device was just one in an ocean of devices," he said.

Azdoufal stressed that he had made no attempt to hack into the manufacturer's servers, but was able to seize control of the machines because the login details for his device enabled him to access others. He immediately reported the issue but the glitch highlighted the potential security problems associated with robot cleaning machines.

Vacuum manufacturer DJI claims it has now fixed the problem. "DJI maintains strong standards for data privacy and security and has established processes for identifying and addressing potential vulnerabilities," said a spokesperson.

Firms can prevent similar problems by requiring consumers to create their own passwords before operating a product for the first time, according to experts.
They add that manufacturers should ensure that the people designing, constructing and coding software are made fully aware of how security can be compromised.