Robots Security Assessment and Analysis Using Open-Source Tools

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) has revolutionized many aspects of the world, including industrial systems, automobiles, home automation, and surveillance, to name a few. IoT has offered a multitude of conveniences for our daily lives, such as being able to control our thermostats remotely, view our home surveillance cameras while away, or have a smart television that can surf the web. However, the widespread adoption of IoT devices combined with their vast device vulnerabilities results in significant security risks reinforcing the need for more robust default security controls and public awareness. As such, this paper aims to discover and document security vulnerabilities in the Asus Zenbo Junior IoT robot, along with providing a few best practices when securing smart home devices. This work presents an experiment using several security vulnerability assessment tools such as Nmap and OpenVAS scans to assess cybersecurity vulnerability currently present on Zenbo based on the 4P forensic investigative framework. The result of the experiment shows multiple open ports were discovered, along with miscellaneous information that an attacker could use to their advantage to attack the Zenbo robot. Based on the result, this work presents various security precautions that can help users protect against cyber-attack.