Cybersecurity“Smart home” security flaws found in popular system

Published 3 May 2016

Cybersecurity researchers were able to hack into the leading “smart home” automation system and essentially get the PIN code to a home’s front door. Their “lock-pick malware app” was one of four attacks that the cybersecurity researchers leveled at an experimental set-up of Samsung’s SmartThings, a top-selling Internet of Things platform for consumers. The work is believed to be the first platform-wide study of a real-world connected home system. The researchers did not like what they saw.

Vulnerabilites found in Samsung's SmartThings platform // Source: umich.edu

Cybersecurity researchers at the University of Michigan were able to hack into the leading “smart home” automation system and essentially get the PIN code to a home’s front door.

Their “lock-pick malware app” was one of four attacks that the cybersecurity researchers leveled at an experimental set-up of Samsung’s SmartThings, a top-selling Internet of Things platform for consumers. The work is believed to be the first platform-wide study of a real-world connected home system. The researchers did not like what they saw.

At least today, with the one public IoT software platform we looked at, which has been around for several years, there are significant design vulnerabilities from a security perspective,” said Atul Prakash, U-M professor of computer science and engineering. “I would say it’s okay to use as a hobby right now, but I wouldn’t use it where security is paramount.”

Earlence Fernandes, a doctoral student in computer science and engineering who led the study, said that “letting it control your window shades is probably fine.”

One way to think about it is if you’d hand over control of the connected devices in your home to someone you don’t trust and then imagine the worst they could do with that and consider whether you’re okay with someone having that level of control,” he said.

U-M reports that regardless of how safe individual devices are or claim to be, new vulnerabilities form when hardware like electronic locks, thermostats, ovens, sprinklers, lights, and motion sensors are networked and set up to be controlled remotely. This is the convenience these systems offer. And consumers are interested in that.

As a testament to SmartThings’ growing use, its Android companion app that lets you manage your connected home devices remotely has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. SmartThings’ app store, where third-party developers can contribute SmartApps that run in the platform’s cloud and let users customize functions, holds more than 500 apps.

The researchers performed a security analysis of the SmartThings’ programming framework and to show the impact of the flaws they found, they conducted four successful proof-of-concept attacks.

  • They demonstrated a SmartApp that eavesdropped on someone setting a new PIN code for a door lock, and then sent that PIN in a text message to a potential hacker. The SmartApp, which they called a “lock-pick malware app” was disguised as a battery level monitor and only expressed the need for that capability in its code.
  • As an example, they showed