5 ways robots are vulnerable to cyberattacks

Due to robotics' interactions with humans, one might expect all possible care would be taken to ensure the devices are digitally secure; however, that appears not to be the case. In the introduction to their paper Hacking Robots Before Skynet (PDF), authors Cesar Cerrudo, CTO at IOActive, and Lucas Apa, Senior Security Consultant at IOActive, write, "Similar to other new technologies, we've found robot technology to be insecure in a variety of ways, and that insecurity could pose serious threats to the people, animals, and organizations they operate in and around." Add the explosive growth of robotic devices to the potential for serious harm, and one begins to understand why Cerrudo and Apa are concerned. SEE: Robots in warehouses to jump 15X over next 4 years, but won't take all the jobs (TechRepublic) As to how Cerrudo and Apa determined whether robotic devices are insecure, they employed IOActive's hacking experts to build cyberattack tools geared for robot ecosystems. "A robot ecosystem is comprised of the physical robot, an operating system, firmware, software, mobile/remote control applications, vendor Internet services, cloud services, and networks," write the two authors.