Update your Belkin WeMo devices before they become botnet zombies
Owners of WeMo home automation devices should upgrade them to the latest firmware version, which was released this week to fix a critical vulnerability that could allow hackers to fully compromise them.
The vulnerability was discovered by researchers from security firm Invincea in the Belkin WeMo Switch, a smart plug that allows users to remotely turn their electronics on or off by using their smartphones. They confirmed the same flaw in a WeMo-enabled smart slow cooker from Crock-Pot, and they think it's probably present in other WeMo products, too.
WeMo devices like the WeMo Switch can be controlled via a smartphone app that communicates with them over a local Wi-Fi network or over the Internet through a cloud service run by Belkin, the creator of the WeMo home automation platform. The mobile app, which is available for both iOS and Android, lets users create rules to turn the device on or off based on the time of day or day of the week. These rules are configured on the app and are then pushed to the device over the local network as an SQLite database. The device parses this database using a series of SQL queries and loads them into its configuration.
