When people talk about hackers, most people imagine someone spying on passwords on their computers, encrypting files, or stealing them outright. That’s certainly not wrong – but hackers can also strike where very few people probably suspect.
In several US cities, hackers have recently apparently caused chaos in machines that are actually supposed to eliminate it: vacuum cleaner robots. This is reported by Australian ABC News. Only robots from the Chinese manufacturer Ecovacs, more precisely the Deebot-X2-Omni model, were affected.
The case of lawyer Daniel Swenson from Minnesota is described. He reported that his robot suddenly made strange noises, not unlike a voice. On his app he saw that unknown people were trying to gain access to his robot vacuum cleaner. But Swenson was convinced that this was a mistake on the part of the robot. He changed the password, rebooted his cleaning assistant and sat back down on the couch with his wife and son.
But suddenly the vacuum cleaner robot started moving again. And this time there were no two opinions about the sounds coming from the robot: racist insults non-stop. But not for long: Swenson quickly switched off the robot and banished it to the garage, where it has been eking out a switched-off existence ever since. At a price of just under 800 euros in this country, this is an expensive traffic jam catcher. But Swenson himself is relieved that the hackers made themselves known so loudly and did not spy on him via the built-in camera and microphone.
Incidents involving robot vacuum cleaners are also reported from other places in the USA. In Los Angeles, a robot is said to have driven the family dog through the house while cursing loudly. It is unclear how many robots in total fell victim to the hackers.
