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A WiFi connected tea kettle, the iKettle, was recently tested by Pen Test Partners and found severely lacking, spewing forth WiFi access codes for encrypted networks to unencrypted clients with just a few tricks. As reported by geek.com:
Ken Munro, a researcher at Pen Test Partners, recently took to the stage in London to show off what he and his co-workers discovered. Their mark was the iKettle, which was proclaimed "the world's first WiFi kettle" by its creators on the crowd-funding site Firebox.
He was able to trick the kettle into connecting to an unencrypted WiFi network just by giving it the same name as the encrypted network it was originally connected to and using a directional antenna to make sure the signal was loud and clear. Once they'd hijacked the wireless connection, Munro and his partner were able to convince the iKettle to spill the key for the encrypted network.
All it took was two little commands sent via Telnet. And being the helpful little kettle that it is, it even handed Munro the key in plain text.
Original Story: http://www.geek.com/news/connected-kettles-found-brewing-up-security-problems-1637249/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @12:50PM
once again, humans act before thinking. its amazing the species has survived this long.
(Score: 5, Funny) by theluggage on Wednesday October 21 2015, @01:55PM
Considering how perfectly this product fills a much-needed gap in the market, its no real surprise that someone monumentally stupid enough to design such a pointless device should also fail at the much more demanding job of internet security.
I mean, even if the device was some sort of automated teamaker that could fill itself with water and perform the incredibly non-arduous process of teamaking* so that a perfectly steeped pot was waiting for you to pour upon your arrival at the kitchen, a task that takes all of 5 minutes (much of which is available for multitasking) is hardly top of the priority list for automation.
*Of course, a hell of a lot of restaurants do seem to have trouble with that - even quite posh ones who employ barristers to make the coffee (I assume that's what makes it so expensive) seem quite content to give you a little, uninsulated pot of tepid water and then, 5 minutes later, when the water has cooled enough to allow a methane-blooded creature from Titan to spill it down their trousers without scalding themselves, finally present you with a box containing 50 varieties of individual teabags which (since no sane person would order tea in a restaurant unless they were avoiding coffee for medical reasons) have probably been doing the rounds for a month.
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Wednesday October 21 2015, @08:06PM
B-b-but it has an `i' in front!