14th December, 2017

Can your home appliances be a cyber threat?

LG’s “life’s good” is a well-known tag line, and often accepted by consumers. However, vulnerabilities in the LG SmartThinQ series discovered recently in July 17 have got us questioning this.

The vulnerabilities discovered by Check Point allowed their researchers to hack into LG SmartThinQ series appliances such as ovens, dishwasher, fridges, dryers and even vacuums. This particular series of appliances all have internet connection capabilities.

The size of the problem is massive. In fact, in the first half of 2016, sales of the LG Hom-Bot vacuum cleaner exceeded 400,000.

The video below shows what can be seen if the software on your LG Hom-Bot vacuum was hacked. It acts as a portable camera around your home or office.

 

 

It is very important that you make sure you update any LG SmartThinQ applicances with the updated patch released by LG in September 2017.

 

Article written by Erin Larsen, Bruce Insurance

Author: Murray Bruce