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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 21 2015, @09:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the consumers-are-steaming-mad dept.

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/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:32PM (#252798)

    Even and especially a toy should not cause severe risk to the owner/user.

    It's like saying: "Oh, this has lead paint? Well, it's just a toy, so who cares?"

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:45PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:45PM (#252804) Journal

    That was business as usual, 40 years ago or less. It's still business as usual in China today. Don't buy your Christmas presents from China, unless you actually want to get rid of your kids.