The root problem, as always, is that it has been normalized that devices in your house, accessed from your house, need cloud access to do this, or even to function all.
Metrics from an inverter, once upon a time, would have been a local web server in the device. Maybe with QR code printed on the device so the typical smartphone user could access it. Firmware updates ought to be physically "opt in" - like stick a USB stick or MicroSD card into the device and push a button.
Not some mysterious cloud that through legal issues, malice or sheer incompetence, can reach in and modify or delete functionality without warning.
My dishwasher has a little nag light to remind me I haven't connected it to my Wifi yet. I never will. It washes dishes just fine.
These kind of things will stop when they start getting treated as malicious attacks (similar to ransomware), i.e. the perpetrators become wanted people and if caught, see significant jail time.
This goes both for the malicious bricking of normal consumer devices, and attacks on critical infrastructure like this, except of course the punishment for the latter should be correspondingly more severe.
I feel like stuff like this shouldn't be anywhere near the internet. Partly because of reasons like this where the manufacturer can just randomly decide to disable it, but also because its usually the software equivalent of Swiss cheese.
I have a solar edge inverter. I never connected it to the Internet out of concern that this was possible. While it is a different company, this vindicates my concern.
MarkusWandel ·6 days ago
Metrics from an inverter, once upon a time, would have been a local web server in the device. Maybe with QR code printed on the device so the typical smartphone user could access it. Firmware updates ought to be physically "opt in" - like stick a USB stick or MicroSD card into the device and push a button.
Not some mysterious cloud that through legal issues, malice or sheer incompetence, can reach in and modify or delete functionality without warning.
My dishwasher has a little nag light to remind me I haven't connected it to my Wifi yet. I never will. It washes dishes just fine.
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tgsovlerkhgsel ·6 days ago
This goes both for the malicious bricking of normal consumer devices, and attacks on critical infrastructure like this, except of course the punishment for the latter should be correspondingly more severe.
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crooked-v ·7 days ago
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rstat1 ·6 days ago
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ryao ·6 days ago
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