this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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I would imagine that someone might have compromised the washing machine and used it as part of a botnet to attack another system. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that washing machine companies might not be the most-proactive at pushing security updates.
If it's got a full general purpose CPU and OS, yeah it can be vulnerable, but a lot of IoT stuff use microcontrollers that run one monolithic program. There's usually no other OS services or hidden exploits to use, I'm having trouble imagining how you'd break out of such a device once you've taken control of it, if you can at all. Can a smarter person correct me if I'm wrong, and explain how chips like the common ESP32 and ESP8266 are vulnerable to attack? Maybe through the RTOS and Wifi stack?
I'm an embedded hobbyist so I'd like to learn about securing my own devices.
Compromised iot devices sold as residential proxy is pretty hot right now: https://thehackernews.com/2024/03/themoon-botnet-resurfaces-exploiting.html?m=1
Those are targeting Linux routers and iot devices though. However, esp32 had vulnerabilities in the past such as the fatal fury attack, though it requires physical access to execute.