Tech: Robot Lawn Mower Unlocks a New Nightmare Hackable

Tech: Robot Lawn Mower Unlocks a New Nightmare Hackable

Cramming for finals is bad enough without the platform you use to do your schoolwork suddenly shutting down. Unfortunately for countless students across the US, that’s exactly what they faced on Thursday after Canvas went into “maintenance mode” following a ransomware attack on education tech firm Instructure. Hackers using the name ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach, and experts say the chaos they caused shows how far these actors will go to extort their victims. Researchers this week revealed that thousands of vibe coded apps were left exposed on the open internet, revealing sensitive corporate and personal data. The security failings are a reminder: Just because you can vibe code something doesn’t necessarily mean you should. The Department of Homeland Security subpoenaed Google in an attempt to obtain the location data and account activity of a Canadian man who criticized US immigration enforcement tactics following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis early this year. The American Civil Liberties Union this week filed a complaint against DHS on behalf of the man, who has not visited the US in more than 10 years. Most people hope that the 200-pound robot with blades in their backyard cannot be easily hacked. Unfortunately for the owners of Yarbo, a $5,000 lawn mower robot that can also work as a leaf blower, snowblower, and edger, that was not the case. The Verge reports that a security researcher found numerous vulnerabilities in the lawn bots that could allow hackers to remotely take over the machines (including their camera feeds,) as well as extract owners' email addresses, Wi-Fi passwords, and home locations. After a Yarbo spokesperson told The Verge that the robots' “diagnostic environment is not publicly accessible,” the reporter and researcher demonstrated the security flaws and their potential consequences by nearly running over the reporter with a hijacked robot. The company has since reported that they are deve

Source: Wired