Xiaomi is in controversy on the new year’s first day as its unintentionally exposed its weakness in IoT. Though it just announced that it would invest about 50 billion yuan in the IoT over the next five years.
“We are planning to invest more than 50 billion yuan in 5G mobile telecommunication, artificial intelligence and IoT over the next five years,” CEO Ray Jun of Xiaomi said in a letter to his members.
On the same day, controversy arose over Xiaomi’s vulnerability to IoT devices at Reddit. A Reddit user “DioVee” uploaded videos and photos that prove it, saying, “When I ran Xiaomi’s camera at Google Home Hub, I saw inside someone else’s house.”
Not only were they exposed the living room, stairs and porch, but also the sleeping baby and an adult taking a nap in the kitchen.
Xiaomi failure in IoT resulting in Google block
After recognizing the problem, Google blocked all Xiaomi devices from Google Nest Hub. “We are working with Xiaomi to solve the problem,” a Google official said in a comment on the post. “We decided to stop the camera streaming link between Google and Xiaomi because user security and privacy are the top priority.”
Google said it will stop the link until the issue fully resolved. Adding that the timing of the restoration is unclear.
Xiaomi’s product in question is ‘Shaomi Mijia 1080p Smart IP Camera’. Xiaomi expressed its position through a foreign media outlet.
“The investigation turned out to be an issue caused by the cache update on Dec. 26 last year,” a Xiaomi source said. “Exposure occurs only in extremely poor network environments.”
They added that the company is resolving the weaknesses. But it will still suspend the service until they resolve the root cause.
As the fatal vulnerability has been revealed, the public’s view of Xiaomi is not good. “It’s so scary,” “I’m so anxious,” “It’s hard to believe,” “I feel like throwing up.”