Robot vacuums in multiple US cities were hacked in the space of a few days, with the attacker physically controlling them and yelling obscenities through their onboard speakers.
The affected robots were all Chinese-made Ecovacs Deebot X2s — the exact model that the ABC was able to hack into as proof of a critical security flaw.
Minnesota lawyer Daniel Swenson was watching TV when his robot started to malfunction.
"It sounded like a broken-up radio signal or something," he told the ABC. "You could hear snippets of maybe a voice."
Through the Ecovacs app, he saw that a stranger was accessing its live camera feed and remote control feature.
Dismissing it as some kind of glitch, Mr Swenson reset his password, rebooted the robot and sat back down on the couch beside his wife and 13-year-old son.
Almost straight away, it started to move again.
This time, there was no ambiguity about what was coming out of the speaker. A voice was yelling racist obscenities, loud and clear, right in front of Mr Swenson's son.
"F*** n******s," screamed the voice, over and over again.
"I got the impression it was a kid, maybe a teenager [speaking]," said Swenson. "Maybe they were just jumping from device to device messing with families."
The second time around, he turned it off.
"Our youngest kids take showers in there," he said. "I just thought of it catching my kids or even me, you know, not dressed."
Despite the slurs, Mr Swenson was glad that the hackers had announced their presence so loudly.
It would have been much worse, he said, if they had decided to quietly observe his family inside their home.
They could've peered through his robot's camera, and listened through the microphone, without him having the slightest clue.
"It was shock," he said. "And then it was like almost fear, disgust."
While his son didn't quite grasp the "creepiness" of the encounter, Mr Swenson was taking no chances.
He took the device to the garage, and never switched it on again.
On May 24, the same day that Mr Swenson's device was hacked, a Deebot X2 went rogue, and chased its owner's dog around their Los Angeles home.
The robot was being steered from afar, with abusive comments coming through the speakers.
The affected robots were all Chinese-made Ecovacs Deebot X2s — the exact model that the ABC was able to hack into as proof of a critical security flaw.
Minnesota lawyer Daniel Swenson was watching TV when his robot started to malfunction.
"It sounded like a broken-up radio signal or something," he told the ABC. "You could hear snippets of maybe a voice."
Through the Ecovacs app, he saw that a stranger was accessing its live camera feed and remote control feature.
Dismissing it as some kind of glitch, Mr Swenson reset his password, rebooted the robot and sat back down on the couch beside his wife and 13-year-old son.
Almost straight away, it started to move again.
This time, there was no ambiguity about what was coming out of the speaker. A voice was yelling racist obscenities, loud and clear, right in front of Mr Swenson's son.
"F*** n******s," screamed the voice, over and over again.
"I got the impression it was a kid, maybe a teenager [speaking]," said Swenson. "Maybe they were just jumping from device to device messing with families."
The second time around, he turned it off.
It could have been worse
Mr Swenson kept his robot vacuum on the same floor as the family's master bathroom."Our youngest kids take showers in there," he said. "I just thought of it catching my kids or even me, you know, not dressed."
Despite the slurs, Mr Swenson was glad that the hackers had announced their presence so loudly.
It would have been much worse, he said, if they had decided to quietly observe his family inside their home.
They could've peered through his robot's camera, and listened through the microphone, without him having the slightest clue.
"It was shock," he said. "And then it was like almost fear, disgust."
While his son didn't quite grasp the "creepiness" of the encounter, Mr Swenson was taking no chances.
He took the device to the garage, and never switched it on again.
Robots hacked in multiple cities
Multiple people, all based in the US, have reported similar hacking incidents within days of each other.On May 24, the same day that Mr Swenson's device was hacked, a Deebot X2 went rogue, and chased its owner's dog around their Los Angeles home.
The robot was being steered from afar, with abusive comments coming through the speakers.
