In yet another example of a manufacturer of a connected product failing to secure said product, Samsung’s connected fridge allows malicious people to steal a consumer’s Gmail login credentials provided they can get on the user’s Wi-Fi network. The exploit, known as a man-in-the-middle attack, is made possible because the Samsung smart fridge lets people link their Gmail calendars to a screen in the fridge’s door so they can see their day’s events.
It’s a handy feature, except when a person logs in, the fridge says it provides SSL encryption, but fails to actually verify that the server on the Google end has the right certificate to actually get the encrypted data. It just hands it over. This is akin to a club saying it checks IDs only to let people get in without actually looking at the date on those IDs. Thus anyone on the consumer’s Wi-Fi network could pretend to be Google’s calendar service and snag the consumer’s Gmail login credentials. From there the hacker could wreak all kinds of havoc. Fortune has reached out to Samsung to see what it has to say about the vulnerability.
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