2017: The Year of the Dishwasher Security Patch

Another day, another hacked dishwasher. Miele’s internet-connected dishwasher is vulnerable to an attack that could allow hackers to take control of the network and make a mess well beyond the kitchen. While the security problem is bad enough, Hackaday points out there’s no good way to address it:

The problem is, a dishwasher is not a computer.��Unlike��Microsoft,
or Google, or even the people behind VLC, Miele don���t
have infrastructure in place to push out an update
to��dishwashers worldwide.��This means that as it stands,
your only real solutions are to either disconnect the
dishwasher from your network, or��lock it behind a highly
restrictive firewall. Both are likely to impede functionality.

While poor security is already becoming a hallmark of internet-of-things gadgets, the lack of a plan for fixing inevitable problems is even more concerning. It suggests a vacuum of care not only for customer experience but for sustainability of the product. Sending your dishwasher to the landfill for a software bug shouldn’t be part of the product lifecycle.

Hackaday | 2017: The Year of the Dishwasher Security Patch