A team of researchers has shown that popular robotic household vacuum cleaners can be tampered with remotely, and act as microphones.
Researchers examined the navigation system of a popular robotics broomς, το οποίο βασίζεται σε ένα λέιζερ και εφαρμόζοντας διάφορες τεχνικές επεξεργασίας σήματος κατάφεραν να λάβουν και να ακούσουν την ομιλία στο δωμάτιο και να αναγνωρίσουν τον ήχο της τηλεόρασης που έπαιζε στον ίδιο χώρο εκείνη την στιγμή.
The research demonstrates the potential for any device using light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology to be manipulated to collect sounds, despite not having a microphone. This work, which is a collaboration with Assistant Professor Jun Han at University of Singapore and Nirupam Roy, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, was presented at the Conference of the Association for Computing Machinery for Integrated Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2020) on 18 November 2020.
Commenting on his research, Nirupam Roy said: "We bring these devices into our homes and we do not think about it. However, we have shown that although these devices do not have microphones, we can reuse the systems they have for navigation, to spy on conversations and possibly reveal private information.
Lidar navigation systems in home vacuum robots emit a laser beam around a room and sense the laser reflection as it bounces off nearby objects. Robots use reflected signals to map the room and avoid collisions as they move through the house.
Security researchers have reported that maps created by the robotic broom, which are often stored in the cloud, create potential breaches of privacy that could give malicious access to information about interesting things, such as the size of the house, which suggests income level and other lifestyle-related information. Roy and his team wondered if Lidar could also pose potential security risks to these robots, such as audio recorders in users' homes or businesses.
Sound waves vibrate objects, and these vibrations cause small fluctuations in the light that bounces off an object. Laser microphones, used in espionage since the 1940s, are capable of converting these variations into sound waves. However, laser microphones are based on a targeted laser beam that reflects on very smooth surfaces, such as glass windows.
A Lidar vacuum cleaner, on the other hand, scans the environment with a laser and senses light scattering behind objects that are irregular in shape and density. The scattered signal received from the vacuum sensor provides only a small part of the information needed to recover sound waves. The researchers were unsure if a Lidar system of a robotic vacuum cleaner could be manipulated to function as a microphone and if the signal could be interpreted and converted into audio signals.
First, the researchers hacked a robot vacuum cleaner to show that they could control the position of the laser beam and send the data from its sensors to their laptops via Wi-Fi without interfering with the device's navigation.
Next, they conducted experiments with two sound sources. One source was human voice speech played by the speakers του υπολογιστή και η άλλη ήταν ήχος από μια ποικιλία τηλεοπτικών εκπομπών που παίζονται μέσω μιας τηλεόρασης. Ο Roy και οι συνάδελφοί του κατέλαβαν στη συνέχεια το σήμα λέιζερ που ανιχνεύτηκε από το σύστημα πλοήγησης της σκούπας, καθώς αυτό αναπηδούσε από διάφορα αντικείμενα τοποθετημένα κοντά στην πηγή ήχου. Τα αντικείμενα περιελάμβαναν κάδο απορριμμάτων, κουτί από χαρτόνι, εμπορευματοκιβώτιο transportand polypropylene bag, items usually found on a typical floor.
The researchers passed the signals they received through AI algorithms that were trained to either match human voices or detect music sequences from television shows. Their computer system, which they call LidarPhone, identified and matched the sounds with 90% accuracy. He also identified TV shows after one minute of recording, with an accuracy of over 90%.
The researchers point out that robotic vacuum cleaners are just one example of a potential vulnerability to Lidar-based espionage. Many other devices could be open to similar attacks, such as a smartphone's infrared sensors used for face recognition or passive infrared sensors used for motion detection.
"I believe this is important research that will make manufacturers aware of these features and push the security and privacy community to find solutions to prevent such attacks," Roy said.
