Bug in Mobile App Lets Hackers Take Control of LG Smart Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)

A reader shares a BleepingComputer report: LG Electronics has avoided a security disaster this summer after it worked with security researchers to patch a vulnerability in the mobile app that customers are using to control a breadth of LG smart home devices. The vulnerability affects the LG SmartThinQ app used to control all of LG's "smart" home appliances, a list that includes devices such as smart ovens, vacuums, dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, air conditioners, and more. The flaw was discovered by security researchers from Israeli firm Check Point, who reported the problem to LG technicians. According to researchers, an attacker would have been able to hijack the authentication process that occurs between the SmartThinQ app and LG's servers. The attacker could have been able to take over a user's account and control devices in the user's home, and paired with the user's profile. For example, attackers could have overheated ovens, altered a home's temperature via AC units in a Mr.Robot-style hack, or spied on users via camera-enabled devices.

Comments

What happens in 10 years?

[sinij]

What happens in 10 years, when some of these appliances are still working, still connected? Is LG going to continue issuing security patches?

Re:What happens in 10 years?

[olsmeister]

Refrigerators are the same way. They've reduced the warranties down to a year or two, they used to be much longer. They're basically disposable.

Re:What happens in 10 years?

[Desler]

Also, most people are simply choosing the cheapest shit they can find so there’s also no incentive to create anything of lasting build quality. Cheap, replaceable junk is the standard these days. It’s also how you satisfy Wall Streets’ demand for infinite growth.

Re:What happens in 10 years?

[plover]

When my grandmother passed about 20 years ago, the family got together to empty the house to sell it. We loaded her old refrigerator on to a truck, and hauled it to the dump (where the guy helping unload it from the truck commented that it was still cold!) On the back was the date of manufacture: 1941. That thing had kept food cold for nearly 60 years.

And you know what? That old fridge was so inefficient that it cost her far more on her electricity bill than if she had thrown it away in 1980 and bought a new one. 60 year reliability was certainly a positive quality, but efficiency was definitely a negative quality that far surpassed it in terms of cost of ownership.

A washing machine from 20 years ago would likely use about 45 gallons of water per wash load, regardless of the load size. A smart HE washer from 2017 uses a sensor to measure the load, and uses between 5-20 gallons. Even in a place where water is cheap, heating the water costs. And the amount of electricity consumed by a modern direct drive motor is a fraction of the belt-driven beasts of the past.

Does that mean your washer should break down after five years, just so you can benefit from whatever gains in efficiency they've made? Of course not. But it does imply that buying a washer built to last 60 years is a waste of money.