A 16-year-old hacker reverse-engineered Motorola’s Halo 3C smoke and vape detector to take full control of its microphone and features, turning it into a live audio eavesdropping bug and enabling fake alerts.
Critical flaws allowed unrestricted password brute-forcing and exposed cryptographic keys in firmware updates, making it trivial for attackers to hijack the device and install malicious code.
Motorola released a firmware patch, but researchers warn that integrating microphones into IoT safety devices inherently risks normalizing invasive surveillance without proper trust or transparency.
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