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These Japanese 'smart toilets' are vulnerable to hackers
Maybe you're the kind of person who enjoys the finer things in life: Flutes of champagne, spontaneous overnights in Paris. Perhaps your apartment even has luxuries like a dishwasher, or in-building laundry.
Which is why you have no qualms about dropping $5,000 on a fancy "smart toilet." Your friends laugh. But this isn't just any gilded throne, no; this is high-end living, the best for the best.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Engineered by LIXIL, purveyors of luxury bathroom fixtures, this technological marvel banishes ordinary porcelain johns to the realm of peasantry.
The Satis comes with such 1 percent trappings as automatic flushing, a built-in deodorizer, twin bidet nozzles, and even a set of speakers to set the mood.
And don't worry about ever having to touch the toilet seat. The Satis' lid opens and closes on its own.
Of course, with 21st-century touches come a unique set of 21st-century problems. The smart toilet's accompanying Android app — because of course it has an accompanying app — is vulnerable to a security exploit that allows hackers to control its functionality from far away, according to a new report from Trustwave. The exploit comes courtesy of the Satis' hard-coded, Bluetooth PIN ("0000"), which arrives default on each machine.
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As such, any person using the "My Satis" application can control any Satis toilet. An attacker could simply download the "My Satis" application and use it to cause the toilet to repeatedly flush, raising the water usage and therefore utility cost to its owner.
Attackers could cause the unit to unexpectedly open/close the lid, activate bidet or air-dry functions, causing discomfort or distress to user. [Trustwave]
Spooky.
Trustwave has alerted the vendor multiple times, but so far hasn't received a response. And unfortunately, a patch does not appear to be on the horizon.
Don't fret too much, though. For there exists a low-tech solution for just such an occasion, if times prove dire. I believe it's called "using a normal toilet."
Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
