How to break a smart home, again

https://securelist.com/iot-hack-how-to-break-a-smart-home-again/84092/

by kushti • 8 years ago

108 75 8 years ago

Klathmon4• 8 years ago

Yet another article that went out and found the shadiest cheapest worst IoT devices and extrapolates in headlines that the entire ecosystem is that bad.

Where's the analysis of Nest? Where's the pentesting of SmartThings? Where's the article about how they tried 12 different ways to get into another reputable brand?

Don't think for a second that I'm saying anyone should get a pass, they shouldn't, but this to me seems like the equivalent of reviewing $3 luggage locks and talking about how insecure they are, then concluding that all locks are insecure and you shouldn't use them...

I will say that this article is better than most at keeping the criticism specific to these devices (except for the headlines), but they don't name the devices, so the analysis isn't doing any good (I still have no idea which device it is, and therefore can't protect myself by not buying it...)

ckastner4• 8 years ago

Don't think for a second that I'm saying anyone should get a pass, they shouldn't, but this to me seems like the equivalent of reviewing $3 luggage locks and talking about how insecure they are, then concluding that all locks are insecure and you shouldn't use them...

No, the article shows that $3 luggage locks exist, and then provides sound general advice on how to avoid those.

supergeek1334• 8 years ago

"IoT hack: how to break a smart home… again"

This is not a reasonable headline if you believe that is all the article is trying to get across.

Klathmon4• 8 years ago

Except their advice wouldn't even stop the attacks they outlined.

Always change the default password. Instead use a strict and complex one. Don’t forget to update it regularly.

Good advice, but it won't stop the password from being sent over HTTP.

Don’t share serial numbers, IP addresses and other sensitive information regarding your smart devices on social networks

Again, good advice, but it won't stop the device from storing WiFi credentials after a hard reset.

Be aware and always check the latest information on discovered IoT vulnerabilities.

I wish I could, but they haven't named a single device that anyone can watch out for, nor have they shared any way that the average user can check for these vulnerabilities.

supergeek1334• 8 years ago

Completely agree with your points. Every time one of these articles comes out it just fuels the FUD factor for Smart Home from reputable companies.

Especially in the last year or two when many of these articles focus on the physical access exploits of cheaper manufacturers. If someone is going to break into my house just to ransomware my thermostat, or upload new firmware to my Gen 1 Alexa... someone needs to explain to me how there are not more high value targets/things in either of those cases. Even for surveillance purposes.

Hardware is hard. I think many small IoT companies have figured that out, the larger ones have known it for a long time. Security is harder, but that's why it's important to buy from someone reputable (e.g., the "default password" fiasco on cheap DVR wired camera systems)

Disclosure: I work for a large consumer IoT company.

emiliobumachar2• 8 years ago

Think big. The latest and greatest in DDoS is botnets of compromised IoT devices (as of a few months ago, I don't keep current). The nightmare scenario, still theoretical, is to synchronize the activation and deactivation of power-hungry processes to wreck the electric grid.

kevas• 8 years ago

Link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/06/stop_us_if_youve_he...

Just because your big, doesn't mean you get it right.

CaptSpify3• 8 years ago

Which companies do you consider the reputable ones? I've been looking a little, but I haven't found any.

akx• 8 years ago

The names of the devices are practically in the clear in the article. First in the picture of the PCB, there's an obscured "Z?p?Box", and googling rather quickly yields the Zipato ZipaBox -- and oh hey, the logo on the PCB matches the one on the site: https://www.zipato.com/product/zipabox

Re the light bulb, you can see the strings "mi-img" and "yeelight", so it's pretty definitely a Xiaomi Yeelight, maybe this one: https://www.gearbest.com/smart-lighting/pp_361555.html

The Zipabox retails for 199 EUR, Yeelights are ~15 EUR a pop on Gearbest... Definitely not the cheapest, shadiest and worst IoT devices.

Klathmon4• 8 years ago

Then they should name and shame!

I'd argue that xiaomi isn't a trustworthy brand by a long shot, there are plenty of examples of these kinds of issues with their stuff, and if more researchers would point out why a specific device is bad, and provide options that do it better, they might be incentivized to improve it, or at least people will be warned to not buy them.

Zipabox does seem like a good product at a very quick first glance of their website, and I do rescind my "shadiest and worst IoT devices" comment for them, but it still annoys the hell out of me that they release this research but don't provide a way (without a bunch of searching like you had to do) for me to check if i'm vulnerable!

tzhenghao• 8 years ago

I agree. I think IoT definitely gets a bad name because of poor security practices and design decisions made by a few bad actors.

The title could've been worded better in warning people to avoid certain products, than to paint the whole ecosystem badly.

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

I agree. I think IoT definitely gets a bad name because of poor security practices and design decisions made by a few bad actors.

No, it gets a bad name because it moves all the legacy code security problems common in heavy industry into a consumer environment where it is much easier to justify not allocating resources to manage those problems.

Stable, mature, well done, IoT is basically nonexistent. There is no boring Toyota Corrolla running Debian stable in IoT. All you can find are Teslas running Gentoo nightly cross compiled from a $30 Android 2.2 tablet. Anything partially obstructing a lane and a few 18-wheelers will bear the scars.

IoT is going to be a security mess for the foreseeable future. Something that actually harms the companies employing the people writing the spaghetti needs to happen before the ball gets rolling to solve things.

Operating systems, networking protocols, serving web content, etc, etc all used to be the wild west at one time too. The problem in IoT is that right now the spaghetti authors are responsible for a huge part of the stack, not just the spaghetti and the sauce. When many IoT projects are reinventing a bunch of wheels it's no surprise that a few of them are square and not very secure. As IoT matures more and more things will be abstracted and the spaghetti that makes your blender smarter than everyone else will run in nice little padded cells where it can't hurt anything.

I expect that eventually most of IoT will be running on a handful of platforms built around a mostly common core stack similar to Linux today (most of IoT uses Linux so they'll probably copy that architecture). There will be plenty of stupid stuff that goes down between now and when IoT starts to mature though.

kevin_nisbet• 8 years ago

While I agree with the sentiment about the $3 luggage locks, I think it's still important to discuss that the $3 luggage lock doesn't work (especially if it's advertised to work). Some users might have the expectation that it does work.

On the more expensive devices, while I have a limited sample, my short career in IOT security has shown me that your $100-$300 devices have pretty serious security implications.

And I think there are a couple reasons why this is the case:

Atleast some (most?) of these products are being built by average developers with average exposure to security, so like other areas of tech, should be just as vulnerable as everything else.

IOT is a young industry, so you don't have the same set of best practices and common code that you can leverage. Ever wanted to encrypt sensor data, on a cpu that's designed to operate for a year on a coin battery? Turns out you can't just run openssl and TLS to secure that low power wireless connection. And that sensor might be the one telling you're security system to trigger.

Hardware is a super competitive market, so when it turns out you're basically selling every unit at a loss to try and gain market share, it doesn't leave a huge amount of room to invest in security best practices vs. get it done and shipped. You know that wireless sensor that detects when you're home and changes you're settings, well it's basically broadcasting to the neighbourhood whether you're home or not. It's a theoretical problem (every problem is until it isn't), that someone could use that against you, so do we worry about that, or do we worry about optimizing our code so that the battery doesn't have to be changed every month.

Please keep in mind, I have limited exposure, but in my experience working on this, I think unless companies can prove they're actively investing in security (and not just saying they care about security), we should be suspicious. I can see why the industry as a whole could be failing to protect it's consumers, and probably deserves a poor reputation for security.

And because you don't hear some researcher talking about product x, doesn't mean that product doesn't have abysmal security. A friend of mine keeps telling me, in her experience security researchers on average are cheap, so they're not going to look at the $300 lock, when there is a $3 alternative to pick apart.

ourmandave• 8 years ago

Looks like they'll need to add a map function to haveibeenpwned.com so you can search by your house address. =(

Fiahil• 8 years ago

If GDPR was enforced, the manufacturer of such devices would be heavily fined, right ?

jmcomets• 8 years ago

In the case of the light bulb, it depends if Wifi SSID & Password count as "user information". I don't see any details concerning the other device tested here.

I'm interested in what's exactly specified as "user information". Wikipedia[0] says that it's "any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...

ptero2• 8 years ago

The article makes reasonable technical points, but adds a fair amount of scaremongering. Even the title is clickbait-y (which is not surprising since the firm is in the IT security business).

I personally do not feel that all IoT-capable devices must be secured to the hilt. If I set min and max temp on a network-enabled thermostat I am not worried that someone will connect and warm (or cool) my home a bit within that range while I am out. At worst I might suffer a minor discomfort when I come in, but the chances are low and the fix is cheap.

Most IoT setups I would consider fall in the same category: low benefit for attacker and low pain if hacked. If so, I take simplicity and reliability over security. And if I ever wanted to build an IoT setup that would be more painful when hacked I would probably put together 2-3 simple, completely distinct systems that report the same data and check for discrepancies to detect intrusions rather than trying to secure one device to the max. Just my 2c.

jlg232• 8 years ago

If I set min and max temp on a network-enabled thermostat I am not worried that someone will connect and warm (or cool) my home a bit within that range while I am out.

Will you say the same after I set min/max temperatures to optimize for high cost and change it back in time so you only notice on your next electricity bill?

And how many times are you willing to wake up at 3am in an overheated apartment before you insist that only you should be able to adjust your thermostats?

I am sure there are plenty more ways to abuse even simple things like thermostats to make your life hell. And the more devices are deployed in the wild, the more "pranks" will be thought of and executed.

ptero2• 8 years ago

That is a fair question, but I still consider it very low likelihood and pretty low impact. Sure, you can make an involved setup harassing me via my thermostat, but I would be amazed (and amused) if it ever happened to me.

I am not a public figure, who would do such a thing? A friend as a prank -- s/he would probably tell me soon enough. An enemy -- it is a really involved way for some sort of hassle -- slashing car tires or breaking windows overnight is just as easy (or easier) and much more painful.

nimbius• 8 years ago

Speaking as a former HVAC/mechanical maintenance engineer, technology like Nest is obscenely underdeveloped. Commercial HVAC systems like Liebert dont get 5-6 strikes at the plate to figure out how to avoid shutting off a customers heat in the dead of winter. Screw up the HVAC in a nursing home or elementary school, and you can kill people.

Honeywell's commercial offering should be the gold standard here in my opinion. Its fully ipv6 and ipv4, and relies on time tested probes and monitors to determine what the hell is going on. You cant force it to short-cycle motors until they burn up, and it cant be forced offline from the control interface if environmental conditions are outside a certain range (Desert summer, for example.) Januaries update even included EC25519 for console and PFS support for the web interface. Best of all, if something is egregiously screwed up in the system, it failsafes to a simple thermostat or pulls settings from a cluster.

lostlogin• 8 years ago

Your example of a nursing home is a good one. Other critical areas include equipment that fails when temps get out of spec and this can be expensive. MR imaging units, labs, server rooms etc.

robgurley• 8 years ago

Great examples. The biggest benefit of "smart home" technology is the commercial sector, anyway. A large office building or school campus uses many times more electricity than residential counterparts, and they have the P&L incentive to cut costs wherever possible (such as through smart metering and devices that communicate with one another to maximize efficiency).

I hope that advances made in security for these commercial systems (by necessity) trickles down into the residential space, sort of like how "dumb" construction techniques, high-efficiency window glazing, etc., have all made their way into the residential sector over time.

ellisv• 8 years ago

A large office building or school campus uses many times more electricity than residential counterparts, and they have the P&L incentive to cut costs wherever possible (such as through smart metering and devices that communicate with one another to maximize efficiency).

The difference is that commercial and industrial buildings already try to minimize costs. In the residential space, occupants often aim for comfort over cost - sometimes missing out on opportunities to retain comfort while minimizing cost. So there may be more relative opportunity to cut costs in the residential sector than commercial or industrial. Of course the sector with the largest opportunity is probably transportation.

FLUX-YOU• 8 years ago

Commercial HVAC systems like Liebert dont get 5-6 strikes at the plate to figure out how to avoid shutting off a customers heat in the dead of winter.

There's more money to test in that side of the industry, I'd wager. Unless the people developing commercial HVAC are simply better software/hardware developers than consumer companies' solutions.

nitrogen• 8 years ago

Unless the people developing commercial HVAC are simply better software/hardware developers than consumer companies' solutions.

Sometimes this is true, relative to the purpose at hand. Take a mediocre web developer and ask them to build a smarthome system, and you end up with a wire protocol of raw, unverified, unfiltered Python code in plain trxt, running under eval() on a grossly underpowered microcontroller (true story, was fixed eventually AFAIK, not naming names).

There's something to be said for the discipline that comes from working in a resource-constrained hardware/software project. We could benefit from more cross-pollination between industries, as long as experienced engineers are sanity checking the resulting ideas (Python is not a protocol!).

themaninthedark• 8 years ago

At what point does it become criminal negligence?

If a go kart manufacturer made a kart whose roll over cage failed in any circumstance we would not excuse it by saying that there is more money to test in the automotive side of the industry.

maxerickson• 8 years ago

They don't necessarily have to be "better" to deliver more reliable products. They have a head start and don't have to aim for the same feature sets that companies like Nest aimed for in their first product.

MR4D• 8 years ago

I really hope your post gets upvoted a hundred times!

Despite loving cool tech, I have nothing like Nest in my house for exactly the reasons you stated.

Maybe Honeywell should move downmarket with your post as the basis for their marketing. I might actually consider it then.

JoeAltmaier• 8 years ago

Is this scaremongering? I write firmware for IoT devices for a living. The client rarely has any interest in security. I put some in, but if it gets in the way (e.g. a variable password for setup depending on the device serial number) they ask to remove it. Sellers actually want a single default.

The latest did want encryption between the device and their upgrade server, which was good. Now it's as secure as their server. Hack that, and of course you own the device, no ALL their devices. No, ALL the devices supported by the service that manages IoT devices for them and others.

AlwaysRock• 8 years ago

Does anyone have secure home security camera recommendation that doesnt operate on a subscription model?

Mister_Snuggles• 8 years ago

I have a handful of WiFi cameras and can recommend two based on my experience, with a caveat:

* Lower-end D-Link Cameras. Look for screenshots of the web interface on the camera in the manual. * Amcrest

The caveat is that both companies offer a cloud service and their cameras really like to try to phone home. The upside is that if you put them on a network that's unable to connect to the internet they still function normally.

Depending on what you want, there are a couple of options. All of these assume that you do not want to use the cloud service and do not want the cameras to phone home, this is enforced by your firewall/router.

1) Easiest is to give the cameras access to your ISP's mail server and use the camera's onboard motion detection/email features to send you alerts.

2) Another easy option is to give the cameras access to an FTP server and have them send any files there when they detect motion.

3) You can go all out and deploy Zoneminder, Blue Iris, iSpy, or a similar product on your network. Personally, I use Zoneminder, but by all accounts the other products listed work well. QNAP and Synology NAS devices also include camera monitoring software, but I haven't done any serious investigation into either.

All three of these approaches can be mixed and matched, but once you have more than a couple of cameras it's really nice to have everything centralized. Option 3 is definitely the most effort.

The key thing is to read the manual and reviews before you buy and make sure that the camera will work in the manner you want.

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

I would look at network cameras and a rooted android device.

Using an android device basically solved the 3rd party integration (e.g. auto-upload, notifications) and being root you could view cameras in real time with some I/O redirection (i.e. tell hangouts that the network camera is the phone camera) and it would have plenty of local storage and battery life. It would be easy enough to do a simple CLI over email or hangouts chat (e.g. "motion detected on camera X, here are snapshots of the last 300sec, reply "hangout camera X" to view the feed with hangouts")

Redirecting video feeds every which way from a Linux-like box is a really dead horse so there's plenty of options and documentation out there on the various details. Options for adding more security/reliability into that sort of stack are also fairly plentiful and well documented.

swiley• 8 years ago

Get a popular sbc and a USB quickcam and use ssh+v4lgrab.

reiichiroh• 8 years ago

Wyzecam Foscam (as long as you can DNS sinkhole the phoning home to China uPnP/tunneling "easy setup" portion) IP cameras and cameras compatible with the Synology NAS DS Camera function.

IP Cameras that are RTSP and TinyCamera or BlueIris compatible.

CaptSpify3• 8 years ago

I like the functionality of sending emails to myself, but I didn't want to go through someone else's server. I never found a camera that could do that so I had to build my own with an RPI

nathan_long2• 8 years ago

Personally, I think a "smart" home is one that provides maximum comfort for minimum effort.

Having to (eg) update the firmware on my lightbulbs sounds about as smart as having to hand-wash my clothes. Hours of effort to save myself 2 seconds a day toggling lights? Not too smart, IMO.

annabellish3• 8 years ago

Hours of effort? Updating the firmware on my Hue bulbs is a two minute thing automatically managed by the app, that happens once in a blue moon.

Besides, smart bulbs aren't really an effort-reduction tool. You get a lot more control over lighting if you can adjust brightness and colour on the fly, and do a lot to change the mood of a room.

nathan_long2• 8 years ago

Yes, sorry for the hyperbole. But in general, for a "smart home" you're going to have apps, logins, setup processes, updates, compatibility grids, security concerns, etc.

I don't know what the total hours of effort are. But I'm pretty sure they're more than I have when I just screw in a lightbulb, plug in a dumb tea kettle, etc. And so far I haven't heard any compelling use cases.

For me, the "smart lighting" I'd enjoy would be getting a few manual dimmer switches installed. Changing color would be neat if it could be done via a similar dumb switch, but it's not something I'd take up a "smart home hobby" for.

retSava• 8 years ago

The connected lamp in the article is, one can read from the pics, the Xiaomi Yeelight. I have a couple of those. They are wifi-connected and you use an app to interact with them (by default). What you can do is to, in the app, enable "developer mode" which enables a local-network interface. Then, you can control them on the local network over TCP.

They have a really nice build quality, a well-documented API for local control, very nice light with adjustable color temperature. And, they have built in support to simplify things (eg "go to 100% over a period of 3 seconds by dimming slowly", or "fade to 3000K color temp over 10 seconds"). And they cost only about 15€.

The non-RGB variant cannot change color temperature and is in my opinion too cold so I can't recommend it.

lev996• 8 years ago

An interesting fact is that the bulb does not interact with the mobile application directly. Instead, both the bulb and the mobile application are connected to a cloud service and communication goes through it.

That convinces me to not buy a smart lightblub. The lifespan of an LED is ~30 years. The lifespan of a IoT/cloud company can be much shorter.

StavrosK3• 8 years ago

Buy a YeeLight, it has a local API. Mine can't even get to the internet.

lev996• 8 years ago

Why is YeeLight worth $18? I usually spend $5 or less for led lightblubs. Where is the extra value?

Edit: Amazon sells a pack of 16 Phillips 800 Lumen (brither than YeeLight) for $1.75/blub. The light is brighter, the color temperature is the same, and it's 1/10th the price. Alexa, a smartphone app, and dimming isn't worth $16.25/bulb to me.

kilo_bravo_3• 8 years ago

So, if an attacker is already physically on your network, and they trigger a firmware update on the lightbulb, and they have modified your router's DNS to request a malicious site, AND they have set up a rogue firmware server likely on your own network, AND they have crafted a malicious firmware for your smart lightbulb...

...they can install a malicious firmware on your smart lightbulb that will forward them your wifi password?

The horror, the horror.

RoyTyrell• 8 years ago

At a glance it seems like a making a mountain out of a mole hill, for sure. However let's say some unscroupulous person puts together a little device and anrdoid app, sells it to would-be criminals. For some amount of money they can buy a device that can try to brute force break into a home network, unlock the doors and perhaps even turn off a security system.

Insurance would cover your stolen items but you're still fucked temporarily, and maybe longer if they were able to steal info to commit identity theft.

Granted they could just smash a window too but this might be easier and make less noise.

nkrisc• 8 years ago

In the comments here and articles like this one, what is the rationale against naming and shaming? Is it legal CYA? Some kind of arbitrary hurdles for would-be exploiters?

I want to know what stuff to avoid what companies don't care about security.

_bxg1• 8 years ago

The most surprising thing was that they even bothered encrypting the root password or responding to the vulnerability reports. From what I can tell, that's far above and beyond the average IoT manufacturer.

How to break a smart home, again

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