Programmer Awarded $30,000 by DJI for Discovering Robot Vacuum Vulnerabilities
Sammy Azdoufal, a programmer based in Spain, received a $30,000 award from the Chinese technology company DJI after he identified significant vulnerabilities in their robot vacuum devices. Azdoufal's discovery allowed him to remotely access and control approximately 7,000 DJI robot vacuums globally. He achieved this by reverse-engineering DJI’s communication protocols using an AI coding assistant. Initially, he intended to control his newly purchased DJI Romo vacuum with a PlayStation 5 gamepad. However, when his custom application communicated with DJI’s servers, it inadvertently connected to thousands of other devices across 24 countries. This access granted him the ability to operate the machines remotely, view their camera feeds, listen to in-home activity, and access two-dimensional floor plans generated by the robots. DJI confirmed the payment for identifying flaws in its Romo robot vacuum devices and stated that a vulnerability allowing video stream viewing without a security PIN was addressed by la... 
