University researchers from Italy and London have discovered several security flaws in TP-Link’s L530E Tapo bulb and it’s related app, risking users’ privacy ultimately.
The researchers noted that an attacker who intends to breach the concerned smart bulb will be able to access the customer’s WiFi, obtain credentials and breach into other devices connected to it remotely. TP-Link acknowledged the bugs and said they are working on a patch.
Bugs in TP-Link Smart Bulb
Researchers from Universita di Catania and the University of London have analysed TP-Link Tapo L530E smart bulb and TP-Link’s Tapo app, resulting in several security risks.
They analysed these products since they’re so popular in the consumer segment, where the bulb is a top-selling unit on several marketplaces, and the app has over 10 million installs on Google Play Store.
Their report noted an improper authentication on Tapo L503E that allows attackers to impersonate the device during the session critical exchange step. This bug was assigned a severity score of 8.8 since it will enable an adjacent attacker to retrieve Tapo user passwords and eventually manipulate the devices.
The next up is a 7.6 severity-rated bug found in a hard-coded short checksum shared secret. Researchers say attackers can obtain this info through brute-forcing or decompiling the Tapo app. Further, another flaw concerns the lack of randomness during symmetric encryption, making the cryptographic scheme predictable.
And finally, the fourth flaw is keeping session keys valid for 24 hours, allowing attackers to replay messages during that period. Researchers say the combination of 1 and 2 bugs can let an attacker extract the victim’s WiFi SSID and password, allowing access to all other devices connected to that network.
Well, these findings were disclosed to TP-Link and the vendor said it’s working on a fix for both bulb firmware and the app. Until then, it’s recommended to keep such devices isolated from critical networks. Further, updating the devices and apps to their latest available firmware and using MFA to protect the accounts is advised.
Other Trending News:- News
