Next-generation Tele-operated Robots can be Hacked

By Gizbot Bureau
|

If you feel that your car's remote-controlled security system is full-proof, you may be wrong as a team of engineers has shown how easily a malicious attack could hijack remotely-controlled operations in the future.

Next-generation Tele-operated Robots can be Hacked

A team of engineers from the University of Washington demonstrated that next generation tele-operated robots using non-private networks can be easily disrupted or derailed by common forms of cyberattacks.

Recommended: Mother's Day Gifts Ideas: Top 20 Stylish Smartphones For Your Mom

Incorporating security measures to foil those attacks will be critical to their safe adoption and use.

Next-generation Tele-operated Robots can be Hacked

"We want to make the next generation of telerobots resilient to some of the threats we've detected without putting an operator or patient or any other person in the physical world in danger," said lead author Tamara Bonaci, a University of Washington doctoral candidate in electrical engineering.

Recommended: 10 Best 21MP to 16MP Camera Smartphones To Buy In India [May 2015]

The team mounted common types of cyberattacks as study participants used a tele-operated surgical robot to move rubber blocks between pegs on a pegboard.

During denial-of-service attacks, in which the attacking machine flooded the system with useless data, the robots became jerky and harder to use.

Next-generation Tele-operated Robots can be Hacked

With a single packet of bad data, for instance, the team was able to maliciously trigger the robot's emergency stop mechanism, rendering it useless.

"If there's been a disaster, the network has probably been damaged too. So you might have to fly a drone and put a router on it and send signals up to it," said Howard Chizeck, UW professor of electrical engineering.

Encrypting data packets that flow between the robot and human operator would help prevent certain types of cyberattacks.

The study was presented at the 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems held in Seattle, US.

Source: IANS

Best Mobiles in India

Best Phones

Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Yes No
Settings X
X