Open garage doors anywhere in the world by exploiting this “smart” device

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

A market-leading garage door controller is so riddled with severe security and privacy vulnerabilities that the researcher who discovered them, Sam Sabetan, is advising anyone using one to immediately disconnect it until they are fixed.

Each $80 device, used to open and close garage doors and control home security alarms and smart power plugs, employs the same easy-to-find universal password to communicate with Nexx servers. The controllers also broadcast the unencrypted email address, device ID, first name, and last initial corresponding to each one, along with the message required to open or shut a door or turn on or off a smart plug or schedule such a command for a later time.

Immediately unplug all Nexx devices

The result: Anyone with a moderate technical background can search Nexx servers for a given email address, device ID, or name and then issue commands to the associated controller. (Nexx controllers for home security alarms are susceptible to a similar class of vulnerabilities.) Commands allow a door to be opened, a device connected to a smart plug to be turned off, or an alarm to be disarmed. Worse still, over the past three months, personnel for Texas-based Nexx haven't responded to multiple private messages warning of the vulnerabilities.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments