Tenga confirmed reports published by several outlets that the company notified customers of a data breach.

The Japanese manufacturer of adult products appears to have fallen victim to a phishing attack targeting one of its employees. Tenga reportedly wrote in the data breach notification:

“An unauthorized party gained access to the professional email account of one of our employees.”

This unauthorized access exposed the contents of said account’s inbox, potentially including customer names, email addresses, past correspondence, order details, and customer service inquiries.

In its official statement, Tenga said a “limited segment” of US customers who interacted with the company were impacted by the incident. Regarding the scope of the stolen data, it stated:

“The information involved was limited to customer email addresses and related correspondence history. No sensitive personal data, such as Social Security numbers, billing/credit card information, or TENGA/iroha Store passwords were jeopardized in this incident.”

From the wording of Tenga’s online statement, it seems the compromised account was used to send spam emails that included an attachment.

“Attachment Safety: We want to state clearly that there is no risk to your device or data if the suspicious attachment was not opened. The risk was limited to the potential execution of the attachment within the specific ‘spam’ window (February 12, 2026, between 12am and 1am PT).”

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We reached out to Tenga about this “suspicious attachment” but have not heard back at the time of writing. We’ll keep you posted.

Tenga proactively contacted potentially affected customers. It advises them to change passwords and remain vigilant about any unusual activity. We would add that affected customers should be on the lookout for sextortion-themed phishing attempts.

What to do if your data was in a breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

• Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
• Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.
• Use our free Digital Footprint scan to see whether your personal information has been exposed online.

---

Tenga confirmed reports published by several outlets that the company notified customers of a data breach.

The Japanese manufacturer of adult products appears to have fallen victim to a phishing attack targeting one of its employees. Tenga reportedly wrote in the data breach notification:

“An unauthorized party gained access to the professional email account of one of our employees.”

This unauthorized access exposed the contents of said account’s inbox, potentially including customer names, email addresses, past correspondence, order details, and customer service inquiries.

In its official statement, Tenga said a “limited segment” of US customers who interacted with the company were impacted by the incident. Regarding the scope of the stolen data, it stated:

“The information involved was limited to customer email addresses and related correspondence history. No sensitive personal data, such as Social Security numbers, billing/credit card information, or TENGA/iroha Store passwords were jeopardized in this incident.”

From the wording of Tenga’s online statement, it seems the compromised account was used to send spam emails that included an attachment.

“Attachment Safety: We want to state clearly that there is no risk to your device or data if the suspicious attachment was not opened. The risk was limited to the potential execution of the attachment within the specific ‘spam’ window (February 12, 2026, between 12am and 1am PT).”

---

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We reached out to Tenga about this “suspicious attachment” but have not heard back at the time of writing. We’ll keep you posted.

Tenga proactively contacted potentially affected customers. It advises them to change passwords and remain vigilant about any unusual activity. We would add that affected customers should be on the lookout for sextortion-themed phishing attempts.

What to do if your data was in a breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

• Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
• Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.
• Use our free Digital Footprint scan to see whether your personal information has been exposed online.

---

Tech bros have been wanting to become immortal for years. Until they get there, their fallback might be continuing to post nonsense on social media from the afterlife.

On December 30, 2025, Meta was granted US patent 12513102B2: Simulation of a user of a social networking system using a language model. It describes a system that trains an AI on a user’s posts, comments, chats, voice messages, and likes, then deploys a bot to respond to newsfeeds, DMs, and even simulated audio or video calls.

Filed in November 2023 by Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, it sounds innocuous enough. Perhaps some people would use it to post their political hot takes while they’re asleep.

Dig deeper, though, and the patent veers from absurd to creepy. It’s designed to be used not just from beyond the pillow but beyond the grave.

From the patent:

“The language model may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased.”

A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider that the company has no plans to act on the patent. And tech companies have a habit of laying claim to bizarre ideas that never materialize. But Facebook’s user numbers have stalled, and it presumably needs all the engagement it can get. We already know that the company loves the idea of AI ‘users’, having reportedly piloted them in late 2024, much to human users’ annoyance.

If the company ever did decide to pull the trigger on this technology, it would be a departure from its own memorialization policy, which preserves accounts without changes. One reason the company might not be willing to step over the line is that the world simply isn’t ready for AI conversations with the dead. Other companies have considered and even tested similar systems. Microsoft patented a chatbot that would allow you to talk to AI versions of deceased individuals in 2020; its own AI general manager called it disturbing, and it never went into production. Amazon demonstrated Alexa mimicking a dead grandmother’s voice from under a minute of audio in 2022, framing it as preserving memories. That never launched either.

Some projects that did ship left people wishing they hadn’t. Startup 2Wai’s avatar app originally offered the chance to preserve loved ones as AI avatars. Users called it “nightmare fuel” and “demonic”. The company seems to have pivoted to safer ground like social avatars and personal AI coaches now.

The legal minefield

The other thing holding Meta back could be the legal questions. Unsurprisingly for such a new idea, there isn’t a uniform US framework on the use of AI to represent the dead. Several states recognize post-mortem right of publicity, although states like New York limit that to people whose voices and images have commercial value (typically meaning celebrities). California’s AB 1836 specifically targets AI-generated impersonations of the deceased, though.

Meta would also need to tiptoe carefully around the law in Europe. The company had to pause AI training on European users in 2024 under regulatory pressure, but then launched it anyway in March last year. Then it refused to sign the EU’s GPAI Code of Practice last July (the only major AI firm to do so). Meta’s relationship with EU regulators is strained at best.

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) excludes deceased persons’ data, but Article 85 of the French Data Protection law lets anyone leave instructions about the retention, deletion and communication of their personal data after death. The EU AI Act’s Article 50 (fully applicable this August) will also require AI systems to disclose they are AI, with penalties up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover for companies that don’t comply.

Hopefully Meta really will file this in the “just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should” drawer, and leave erstwhile social media sharers to rest in peace.

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We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

Tech bros have been wanting to become immortal for years. Until they get there, their fallback might be continuing to post nonsense on social media from the afterlife.

On December 30, 2025, Meta was granted US patent 12513102B2: Simulation of a user of a social networking system using a language model. It describes a system that trains an AI on a user’s posts, comments, chats, voice messages, and likes, then deploys a bot to respond to newsfeeds, DMs, and even simulated audio or video calls.

Filed in November 2023 by Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, it sounds innocuous enough. Perhaps some people would use it to post their political hot takes while they’re asleep.

Dig deeper, though, and the patent veers from absurd to creepy. It’s designed to be used not just from beyond the pillow but beyond the grave.

From the patent:

“The language model may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased.”

A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider that the company has no plans to act on the patent. And tech companies have a habit of laying claim to bizarre ideas that never materialize. But Facebook’s user numbers have stalled, and it presumably needs all the engagement it can get. We already know that the company loves the idea of AI ‘users’, having reportedly piloted them in late 2024, much to human users’ annoyance.

If the company ever did decide to pull the trigger on this technology, it would be a departure from its own memorialization policy, which preserves accounts without changes. One reason the company might not be willing to step over the line is that the world simply isn’t ready for AI conversations with the dead. Other companies have considered and even tested similar systems. Microsoft patented a chatbot that would allow you to talk to AI versions of deceased individuals in 2020; its own AI general manager called it disturbing, and it never went into production. Amazon demonstrated Alexa mimicking a dead grandmother’s voice from under a minute of audio in 2022, framing it as preserving memories. That never launched either.

Some projects that did ship left people wishing they hadn’t. Startup 2Wai’s avatar app originally offered the chance to preserve loved ones as AI avatars. Users called it “nightmare fuel” and “demonic”. The company seems to have pivoted to safer ground like social avatars and personal AI coaches now.

The legal minefield

The other thing holding Meta back could be the legal questions. Unsurprisingly for such a new idea, there isn’t a uniform US framework on the use of AI to represent the dead. Several states recognize post-mortem right of publicity, although states like New York limit that to people whose voices and images have commercial value (typically meaning celebrities). California’s AB 1836 specifically targets AI-generated impersonations of the deceased, though.

Meta would also need to tiptoe carefully around the law in Europe. The company had to pause AI training on European users in 2024 under regulatory pressure, but then launched it anyway in March last year. Then it refused to sign the EU’s GPAI Code of Practice last July (the only major AI firm to do so). Meta’s relationship with EU regulators is strained at best.

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) excludes deceased persons’ data, but Article 85 of the French Data Protection law lets anyone leave instructions about the retention, deletion and communication of their personal data after death. The EU AI Act’s Article 50 (fully applicable this August) will also require AI systems to disclose they are AI, with penalties up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover for companies that don’t comply.

Hopefully Meta really will file this in the “just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should” drawer, and leave erstwhile social media sharers to rest in peace.

---

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

Betterment LLC is an investment advisor registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company disclosed a January 2026 incident in which an attacker used social engineering to access a third‑party platform used for customer communications, then abused it to send crypto‑themed phishing messages and exfiltrate contact and identity data for more than a million people.

What makes this particularly concerning is the depth of the exposed information. This isn’t just a list of email addresses. The leaked files include retirement plan details, financial interests, internal meeting notes, and pipeline data. It’s information that gives cybercriminals real context about a person’s finances and professional life.

What’s worse is that ransomware group Shiny Hunters claims that, since Betterment refused to pay their demanded ransom, it is publishing the stolen data.

While Betterment has not revealed the number of affected customers in its online communications, general consensus indicates that the data of 1.4 million customers was involved. And now, every cybercriminal can download this information at their leisure.

We analyzed some of the data and found one particularly worrying CSV file with detailed data on 181,487 people. This file included information such as:

• Full names (first and last)
• Personal email addresses (e.g., Gmail)
• Work email addresses
• Company name and employer info
• Job titles and roles
• Phone numbers (both mobile and work numbers)
• Addresses and company websites
• Plan details—company retirement/401k plans, assets, participants
• Survey responses, deal and client pipeline details, meeting notes
• Financial needs/interests (e.g., requesting a securities-backed line of credit for a house purchase)

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This kind of data is a gold mine for phishers, who can use it in targeted attacks. It has enough context to craft convincing, individually tailored phishing emails. For example:

• Addressing someone by their real name, company, and job title
• Referencing the company’s retirement or financial plans
• Impersonating Betterment advisors or plan administrators
• Initiating scam calls about financial advice

Combined with data from other breaches it could even be worse and lead to identity theft.

What to do if your data was in a breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

• Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
• Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

Use Malwarebytes’ free Digital Footprint scan to see whether your personal information has been exposed online.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

Betterment LLC is an investment advisor registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company disclosed a January 2026 incident in which an attacker used social engineering to access a third‑party platform used for customer communications, then abused it to send crypto‑themed phishing messages and exfiltrate contact and identity data for more than a million people.

What makes this particularly concerning is the depth of the exposed information. This isn’t just a list of email addresses. The leaked files include retirement plan details, financial interests, internal meeting notes, and pipeline data. It’s information that gives cybercriminals real context about a person’s finances and professional life.

What’s worse is that ransomware group Shiny Hunters claims that, since Betterment refused to pay their demanded ransom, it is publishing the stolen data.

While Betterment has not revealed the number of affected customers in its online communications, general consensus indicates that the data of 1.4 million customers was involved. And now, every cybercriminal can download this information at their leisure.

We analyzed some of the data and found one particularly worrying CSV file with detailed data on 181,487 people. This file included information such as:

• Full names (first and last)
• Personal email addresses (e.g., Gmail)
• Work email addresses
• Company name and employer info
• Job titles and roles
• Phone numbers (both mobile and work numbers)
• Addresses and company websites
• Plan details—company retirement/401k plans, assets, participants
• Survey responses, deal and client pipeline details, meeting notes
• Financial needs/interests (e.g., requesting a securities-backed line of credit for a house purchase)

---

---

This kind of data is a gold mine for phishers, who can use it in targeted attacks. It has enough context to craft convincing, individually tailored phishing emails. For example:

• Addressing someone by their real name, company, and job title
• Referencing the company’s retirement or financial plans
• Impersonating Betterment advisors or plan administrators
• Initiating scam calls about financial advice

Combined with data from other breaches it could even be worse and lead to identity theft.

What to do if your data was in a breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

• Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
• Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

Use Malwarebytes’ free Digital Footprint scan to see whether your personal information has been exposed online.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

Hard disks and magnetic tape have a limited lifespan, but glass storage developed by Microsoft could last millennia

Some cultures used stone, others used parchment. Some even, for a time, used floppy disks. Now scientists have come up with a new way to keep archived data safe that, they say, could endure for millennia: laser-writing in glass.

From personal photos that are kept for a lifetime to business documents, medical information, data for scientific research, national records and heritage data, there is no shortage of information that needs to be preserved for very long periods of time.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Tetra Images/Erik Isakson/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tetra Images/Erik Isakson/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tetra Images/Erik Isakson/Getty Images

Google has issued a patch for a high‑severity Chrome zero‑day, tracked as CVE‑2026‑2441, a memory bug in how the browser handles certain font features that attackers are already exploiting.

CVE-2026-2441 has the questionable honor of being the first Chrome zero-day of 2026. Google considered it serious enough to issue a separate update of the stable channel for it, rather than wait for the next major release.

How to update Chrome

The latest version number is 145.0.7632.75/76 for Windows and macOS, and 145.0.7632.75 for Linux. So, if your Chrome is on version 145.0.7632.75 or later, it’s protected from these vulnerabilities.

The easiest way to update is to allow Chrome to update automatically. But you can end up lagging behind if you never close your browser or if something goes wrong, such as an extension preventing the update.

To update manually, click the More menu (three dots), then go to Settings > About Chrome. If an update is available, Chrome will start downloading it. Restart Chrome to complete the update, and you’ll be protected against these vulnerabilities.

You can also find step-by-step instructions in our guide to how to update Chrome on every operating system.

Technical details

Google confirms it has seen active exploitation but is not sharing who is being targeted, how often, or detailed indicators yet.

But we can derive some information from what we know.

The vulnerability is a use‑after‑free issue in Chrome’s CSS font feature handling (CSSFontFeatureValuesMap), which is part of how websites display and style text. More specifically: The root cause is an iterator invalidation bug. Chrome would loop over a set of font feature values while also changing that set, leaving the loop pointing at stale data until an attacker managed to turn that into code execution.

Use-after-free (UAF) is a type of software vulnerability where a program attempts to access a memory location after it has been freed. That can lead to crashes or, in some cases, lets an attacker run their own code.

The CVE-record says, “Use after free in CSS in Google Chrome prior to 145.0.7632.75 allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox via a crafted HTML page.” (Chromium security severity: High)

This means an attacker would be able to create a special website, or other HTML content that would run code inside the Chrome browser’s sandbox.

Chrome’s sandbox is like a secure box around each website tab. Even if something inside the tab goes rogue, it should be confined and not able to tamper with the rest of your system. It limits what website code can touch in terms of files, devices, and other apps, so a browser bug ideally only gives an attacker a foothold in that restricted environment, not full control of the machine.

Running arbitrary code inside the sandbox is still dangerous because the attacker effectively “becomes” that browser tab. They can see and modify anything the tab can access. Even without escaping to the operating system, this is enough to steal accounts, plant backdoors in cloud services, or reroute sensitive traffic.

If chained with a vulnerability that allows a process to escape the sandbox, an attacker can move laterally, install malware, or encrypt files, as with any other full system compromise.

How to stay safe

To protect your device against attacks exploiting this vulnerability, you’re strongly advised to update as soon as possible. Here are some more tips to avoid becoming a victim, even before a zero-day is patched:

• Don’t click on unsolicited links in emails, messages, unknown websites, or on social media.
• Enable automatic updates and restart regularly. Many users leave browsers open for days, which delays protection even if the update is downloaded in the background.
• Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution which includes a web protection component.

Users of other Chromium-based browsers can expect to see a similar update.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

Google has issued a patch for a high‑severity Chrome zero‑day, tracked as CVE‑2026‑2441, a memory bug in how the browser handles certain font features that attackers are already exploiting.

CVE-2026-2441 has the questionable honor of being the first Chrome zero-day of 2026. Google considered it serious enough to issue a separate update of the stable channel for it, rather than wait for the next major release.

How to update Chrome

The latest version number is 145.0.7632.75/76 for Windows and macOS, and 145.0.7632.75 for Linux. So, if your Chrome is on version 145.0.7632.75 or later, it’s protected from these vulnerabilities.

The easiest way to update is to allow Chrome to update automatically. But you can end up lagging behind if you never close your browser or if something goes wrong, such as an extension preventing the update.

To update manually, click the More menu (three dots), then go to Settings > About Chrome. If an update is available, Chrome will start downloading it. Restart Chrome to complete the update, and you’ll be protected against these vulnerabilities.

You can also find step-by-step instructions in our guide to how to update Chrome on every operating system.

Technical details

Google confirms it has seen active exploitation but is not sharing who is being targeted, how often, or detailed indicators yet.

But we can derive some information from what we know.

The vulnerability is a use‑after‑free issue in Chrome’s CSS font feature handling (CSSFontFeatureValuesMap), which is part of how websites display and style text. More specifically: The root cause is an iterator invalidation bug. Chrome would loop over a set of font feature values while also changing that set, leaving the loop pointing at stale data until an attacker managed to turn that into code execution.

Use-after-free (UAF) is a type of software vulnerability where a program attempts to access a memory location after it has been freed. That can lead to crashes or, in some cases, lets an attacker run their own code.

The CVE-record says, “Use after free in CSS in Google Chrome prior to 145.0.7632.75 allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox via a crafted HTML page.” (Chromium security severity: High)

This means an attacker would be able to create a special website, or other HTML content that would run code inside the Chrome browser’s sandbox.

Chrome’s sandbox is like a secure box around each website tab. Even if something inside the tab goes rogue, it should be confined and not able to tamper with the rest of your system. It limits what website code can touch in terms of files, devices, and other apps, so a browser bug ideally only gives an attacker a foothold in that restricted environment, not full control of the machine.

Running arbitrary code inside the sandbox is still dangerous because the attacker effectively “becomes” that browser tab. They can see and modify anything the tab can access. Even without escaping to the operating system, this is enough to steal accounts, plant backdoors in cloud services, or reroute sensitive traffic.

If chained with a vulnerability that allows a process to escape the sandbox, an attacker can move laterally, install malware, or encrypt files, as with any other full system compromise.

How to stay safe

To protect your device against attacks exploiting this vulnerability, you’re strongly advised to update as soon as possible. Here are some more tips to avoid becoming a victim, even before a zero-day is patched:

• Don’t click on unsolicited links in emails, messages, unknown websites, or on social media.
• Enable automatic updates and restart regularly. Many users leave browsers open for days, which delays protection even if the update is downloaded in the background.
• Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution which includes a web protection component.

Users of other Chromium-based browsers can expect to see a similar update.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

Sammy Azdoufal wanted to steer his robot vacuum with a PS5 controller. Like any good maker, he thought it would be fun to drive a new DJI Romo around manually. He ended up gaining access to an army of robotic cleaners that gave him eyes into thousands of homes.

Driven by purely playful reasons, Azdoufal used Anthropic’s Claude Code AI coding assistant to reverse-engineer his Romo’s communication protocols. But when his homebrew app connected to DJI’s servers, roughly 7,000 robot vacuums across 24 countries started answering.

He could watch their live camera feeds, listen through onboard microphones, and generate floor plans of homes he’d never visited. With just a 14-digit serial number, he pinpointed a Verge journalist’s robot, confirmed it was cleaning the living room at 80% battery, and produced an accurate map of the house from another country.

The technical failure was almost comically basic. DJI’s MQTT message broker had no topic-level access controls. Once you authenticated with a single device token, you could see traffic from others device in plaintext.

It wasn’t only vacuums that answered back. DJI’s Power portable battery stations, which run on the same MQTT infrastructure, also showed up. These are home-backup generators expandable to 22.5kWh, marketed for keeping your house running during outages.

What makes this different from a conventional security discovery is how it happened. Azdoufal used Claude Code to decompile DJI’s mobile app, understand its protocol, extract his own authentication token, and build a custom client.

AI coding tools are lowering the bar for advanced offensive security. The population capable of probing Internet of Things (IoT) protocols just got much, much larger, further eroding any remaining faith in security through obscurity.

Why plenty of IoT vacuum cleaners suck

This isn’t the first time someone has remotely pwned a robot vacuum cleaner. In 2024, hackers commandeered Ecovacs Deebot X2 vacuums across US cities, shouting slurs through speakers and chasing pets around. Ecovacs’s PIN protection was checked only by the app, never by the server or the device.

Last September, South Korea’s consumer watchdog tested six brands. While Samsung and LG fared well, and found serious flaws in three Chinese models. Dreame’s X50 Ultra allowed remote camera activation. Researcher who Dennis Giese later reported a TLS vulnerability in Dreame’s app to CISA. Dreame didn’t respond to CISA’s queries.

The pattern keeps repeating: manufacturers ship vacuums with textbook security failures, ignore researchers, then scramble when journalists publish.

DJI’s initial response made things worse. Spokesperson Daisy Kong told The Verge the flaw had been fixed the prior week. That statement arrived about thirty minutes before Azdoufal demonstrated thousands of robots, including the journalist’s own review unit, still reporting in live. DJI later issued a fuller statement acknowledging a backend permission validation issue and two patches, on February 8 and 10.

DJI said that TLS encryption was always in place, but Azdoufal says that protects the connection, not what’s inside it. He also told The Verge that additional vulnerabilities remain unpatched, including a PIN bypass on the camera feed.

Regulators are applying pressure

Regulation is arriving, slowly. The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act will require mandatory security-by-design for all connected products sold in the bloc by December 2027, with fines up to €15 million. The UK’s PSTI Act, in force since April 2024, became the world’s first law banning default passwords on smart devices. The US Cyber Trust Mark, by contrast, is voluntary. These frameworks technically apply regardless of where the manufacturer sits. In practice, enforcing fines on a Shenzhen company that ignores CISA coordination requests is a different proposition entirely.

How to stay safe

There are practical steps you can take:

• Check independent security testing before buying connected devices
• Place IoT devices on a separate guest network
• Keep firmware updated
• Disable features you don’t need

And ask yourself whether a vacuum really needs a camera. Many LiDAR-only models navigate effectively without video. If your device includes a camera or microphone, consider whether you’re comfortable with that exposure—or physically cover the lens when not in use.

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We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Sammy Azdoufal wanted to steer his robot vacuum with a PS5 controller. Like any good maker, he thought it would be fun to drive a new DJI Romo around manually. He ended up gaining access to an army of robotic cleaners that gave him eyes into thousands of homes.

Driven by purely playful reasons, Azdoufal used Anthropic’s Claude Code AI coding assistant to reverse-engineer his Romo’s communication protocols. But when his homebrew app connected to DJI’s servers, roughly 7,000 robot vacuums across 24 countries started answering.

He could watch their live camera feeds, listen through onboard microphones, and generate floor plans of homes he’d never visited. With just a 14-digit serial number, he pinpointed a Verge journalist’s robot, confirmed it was cleaning the living room at 80% battery, and produced an accurate map of the house from another country.

The technical failure was almost comically basic. DJI’s MQTT message broker had no topic-level access controls. Once you authenticated with a single device token, you could see traffic from others device in plaintext.

It wasn’t only vacuums that answered back. DJI’s Power portable battery stations, which run on the same MQTT infrastructure, also showed up. These are home-backup generators expandable to 22.5kWh, marketed for keeping your house running during outages.

What makes this different from a conventional security discovery is how it happened. Azdoufal used Claude Code to decompile DJI’s mobile app, understand its protocol, extract his own authentication token, and build a custom client.

AI coding tools are lowering the bar for advanced offensive security. The population capable of probing Internet of Things (IoT) protocols just got much, much larger, further eroding any remaining faith in security through obscurity.

Why plenty of IoT vacuum cleaners suck

This isn’t the first time someone has remotely pwned a robot vacuum cleaner. In 2024, hackers commandeered Ecovacs Deebot X2 vacuums across US cities, shouting slurs through speakers and chasing pets around. Ecovacs’s PIN protection was checked only by the app, never by the server or the device.

Last September, South Korea’s consumer watchdog tested six brands. While Samsung and LG fared well, and found serious flaws in three Chinese models. Dreame’s X50 Ultra allowed remote camera activation. Researcher who Dennis Giese later reported a TLS vulnerability in Dreame’s app to CISA. Dreame didn’t respond to CISA’s queries.

The pattern keeps repeating: manufacturers ship vacuums with textbook security failures, ignore researchers, then scramble when journalists publish.

DJI’s initial response made things worse. Spokesperson Daisy Kong told The Verge the flaw had been fixed the prior week. That statement arrived about thirty minutes before Azdoufal demonstrated thousands of robots, including the journalist’s own review unit, still reporting in live. DJI later issued a fuller statement acknowledging a backend permission validation issue and two patches, on February 8 and 10.

DJI said that TLS encryption was always in place, but Azdoufal says that protects the connection, not what’s inside it. He also told The Verge that additional vulnerabilities remain unpatched, including a PIN bypass on the camera feed.

Regulators are applying pressure

Regulation is arriving, slowly. The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act will require mandatory security-by-design for all connected products sold in the bloc by December 2027, with fines up to €15 million. The UK’s PSTI Act, in force since April 2024, became the world’s first law banning default passwords on smart devices. The US Cyber Trust Mark, by contrast, is voluntary. These frameworks technically apply regardless of where the manufacturer sits. In practice, enforcing fines on a Shenzhen company that ignores CISA coordination requests is a different proposition entirely.

How to stay safe

There are practical steps you can take:

• Check independent security testing before buying connected devices
• Place IoT devices on a separate guest network
• Keep firmware updated
• Disable features you don’t need

And ask yourself whether a vacuum really needs a camera. Many LiDAR-only models navigate effectively without video. If your device includes a camera or microphone, consider whether you’re comfortable with that exposure—or physically cover the lens when not in use.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.