I keep reading about how IoT / wearables / smart home devices are routinely both vulnerable and exploited, if not even come with malware preinstalled, so I was curious to finally go through a primary source like this.
After skimming through the attacks performed in this research, and checking every mention of the word "internet", all I got was a section with a hypothetical scenario where the watch has a publicly reachable IPv4 address. Suffice to say, that is really quite unlikely, certainly in my experience at least.
It did also talk about bundled malware, so I guess that's bad enough, but is all IoT research like this? Always sounded to me like you kinda need to already have a foot in the door for these, and this paper didn't dispel that notion for me at all.
The source site/paper won't load for me at this time, but if the device has a cellular modem in it for network connectivity, it will 100% be assigned an IPv4 address from the carrier. Unless this device is using an APN at the carrier level, or is using a SIM provider that provides some additional security.
"You're safe as long as every device on the network you're on is safe" isn't safe.
In theory I should be able to take a modern browser/device over a completely compromised router and either be safe, or have my device tell me "holy shit, something is wrong".
The days of local trust should be long gone by now.
Title: KTH student hacked a popular children’s smartwatch, found 17 vulnerabilities and full remote access
A former student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology has demonstrated how a popular children’s smartwatch can be fully compromised over the internet. In his thesis, “Ethical Hacking of a Smartwatch for Kids: A Hacker’s Playground,” Gustaf Blomqvist conducted an ethical security assessment of a widely sold kids’ smartwatch and found what he describes as severe security flaws.
The device, identified in Swedish media as the MyFirst Fone R1s by MyFirst, exposed an insecure network service directly to the internet. By scanning for devices, an attacker could identify watches and take complete control of them remotely.
According to the findings, an attacker could access the camera and microphone, eavesdrop on surroundings, read and manipulate text messages, send arbitrary messages, and potentially use the device in denial-of-service attacks. In total, 17 vulnerabilities were discovered.
Blomqvist also found preinstalled malicious code on the watch. The device reportedly connected periodically to a remote server and transmitted detailed information about its contents. The update mechanism for that code was itself vulnerable, making it possible to install additional malicious software.
Children’s smartwatches are marketed primarily as safety devices so that parents can stay in contact with their children. However, the research suggests these products may introduce serious privacy and security risks instead.
Blomqvist says he reported the vulnerabilities to the manufacturer and initially received instructions on where to submit the details, but after that communication stopped. Pontus Johnson, professor of cybersecurity at KTH, commented that many software-based systems remain highly vulnerable and that smaller manufacturers may lack the resources to properly address security issues.
The EU Cyber Resilience Act introduces mandatory cybersecurity requirements for connected products, but full enforcement will not take effect until 2027.
Yea, devices like this are commonly built as cheap as possible, and using things like software component analysis typically doesn't happen. And while I can't say about this company, I've worked with other companies that contract/subcontract out building the software for devices like this to the point there is little to no internal software security culture at the parent company capable of identifying potential problems in said software. This is further exacerbated the the previously mentioned 'as cheaply as possible groups' quite often having poor control over their own employees and intentional hacks/data siphons being bundled with the device.
I've seen larger firms that have come to own some software like this from buyouts and on the first analysis they'll find hundreds of shockingly easy exploits like RCE's in them.
Along with this I've seen the number of software vulns reported by closed source software is no where close to what they find and fix silently at a huge number of companies.
Article was a bit of a nothingburger for the technically inclined.
Digging into the paper, the significant finding (RCE) is achieved via:
A payload was written which installs a reverse shell backdoor for root persistence. The payload was sent from a computer hosting a Wi-Fi to which the watch was connected, to ensure the watch had a reachable IPv4 address.
The program ncat was used both to send the payload to the watch's network service, and to catch reverse shell connections.
So if i understand this- it requires the watch being connected to a compromised AP. Anyone get a different read?
> In this thesis, welldocumented grey-box ethical hacking is conducted of the network service and firmware attack surfaces of the children’s smartwatch myFirst Fone R1s.
After skimming through the attacks performed in this research, and checking every mention of the word "internet", all I got was a section with a hypothetical scenario where the watch has a publicly reachable IPv4 address. Suffice to say, that is really quite unlikely, certainly in my experience at least.
It did also talk about bundled malware, so I guess that's bad enough, but is all IoT research like this? Always sounded to me like you kinda need to already have a foot in the door for these, and this paper didn't dispel that notion for me at all.
In theory I should be able to take a modern browser/device over a completely compromised router and either be safe, or have my device tell me "holy shit, something is wrong".
The days of local trust should be long gone by now.
Why is that? Are the cellular carriers blocking access?
A former student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology has demonstrated how a popular children’s smartwatch can be fully compromised over the internet. In his thesis, “Ethical Hacking of a Smartwatch for Kids: A Hacker’s Playground,” Gustaf Blomqvist conducted an ethical security assessment of a widely sold kids’ smartwatch and found what he describes as severe security flaws.
The device, identified in Swedish media as the MyFirst Fone R1s by MyFirst, exposed an insecure network service directly to the internet. By scanning for devices, an attacker could identify watches and take complete control of them remotely.
According to the findings, an attacker could access the camera and microphone, eavesdrop on surroundings, read and manipulate text messages, send arbitrary messages, and potentially use the device in denial-of-service attacks. In total, 17 vulnerabilities were discovered.
Blomqvist also found preinstalled malicious code on the watch. The device reportedly connected periodically to a remote server and transmitted detailed information about its contents. The update mechanism for that code was itself vulnerable, making it possible to install additional malicious software.
Children’s smartwatches are marketed primarily as safety devices so that parents can stay in contact with their children. However, the research suggests these products may introduce serious privacy and security risks instead.
Blomqvist says he reported the vulnerabilities to the manufacturer and initially received instructions on where to submit the details, but after that communication stopped. Pontus Johnson, professor of cybersecurity at KTH, commented that many software-based systems remain highly vulnerable and that smaller manufacturers may lack the resources to properly address security issues.
The EU Cyber Resilience Act introduces mandatory cybersecurity requirements for connected products, but full enforcement will not take effect until 2027.
Sources: kth.se, expressen.se
I've seen larger firms that have come to own some software like this from buyouts and on the first analysis they'll find hundreds of shockingly easy exploits like RCE's in them.
Along with this I've seen the number of software vulns reported by closed source software is no where close to what they find and fix silently at a huge number of companies.
Same professor, Pontus Johnson, is mentioned that story.
Digging into the paper, the significant finding (RCE) is achieved via:
A payload was written which installs a reverse shell backdoor for root persistence. The payload was sent from a computer hosting a Wi-Fi to which the watch was connected, to ensure the watch had a reachable IPv4 address. The program ncat was used both to send the payload to the watch's network service, and to catch reverse shell connections.
So if i understand this- it requires the watch being connected to a compromised AP. Anyone get a different read?
the source linked in the article is dead, and I only see that AI slop comment here
-- MyFirst Fone R1, singapore
funny that it's called my first, find my first upon your device, haha
> In this thesis, welldocumented grey-box ethical hacking is conducted of the network service and firmware attack surfaces of the children’s smartwatch myFirst Fone R1s.