Chinese robot vacuums hacked in US to shout racial slurs at unsuspecting owners

In several U.S. cities, Ecovacs Deebot X2 robot vacuums, owned by a Chinese company, were hacked with attackers gaining physical control of the devices and using their onboard speakers to yell profanities at their unsuspecting owners.

The Chinese-based high-tech robot company has faced numerous security issues from their human-interacting robots , which have allowed hackers with malicious intent to exploit these weaknesses.

This includes gaining control of the techy device's onboard camera, enabling them to spy on the owners.

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One incident occurred in Minnesota, where lawyer Daniel Swenson noticed his vacuum acting strangely. After investigating through the Ecovacs app, he realized someone was accessing its live camera and controls. He reset the device, but it resumed moving almost immediately, this time broadcasting loud, racist slurs that shocked his family. Swenson described hearing snippets of a voice that initially sounded like a garbled radio signal. However, the second attack was unmistakable, with the vacuum clearly yelling explicit slurs directed at Black people.

Swenson believes it was likely a prank by a young hacker, someone jumping between devices to terrorize families. Although shaken by the event, he was relieved the hacker had made their presence known. His primary concern was for his family’s privacy, as the vacuum was located near a bathroom used by his children. Had the hacker remained undetected, the intrusion could have been even more disturbing.

Similar reports emerged across the U.S. within days of Swenson’s experience. On the same day as the Minnesota hack, a Deebot X2 in Los Angeles was remotely controlled to chase its owner’s dog around the house while broadcasting abusive comments. Another case in El Paso involved the robot shouting racial slurs late at night until the owner unplugged it.

Although the total number of hacked devices remains unclear, these incidents have raised serious concerns about the security of the Ecovacs Deebot X2 vacuums. Six months prior, researchers had identified significant vulnerabilities in the device’s Bluetooth system, which allowed control from over 100 meters away, though this flaw doesn’t seem to be the cause of these distributed attacks. Other weaknesses, such as a faulty PIN system protecting the robot’s video feed and remote control functions, may explain how hackers infiltrated multiple devices.

Additionally, the warning system that is supposed to activate when the camera is in use could be disabled by attackers, allowing them to observe victims without their knowledge. While Swenson and others were made aware of the intrusion by the disturbing audio, the idea that hackers could have silently spied on them is even more unsettling.