Hackers take control of robot vacuums, yell racial slurs in multiple US cities

Robot vacuums in various US cities were hijacked by hackers, who gained control of the devices and used their onboard speakers to shout racist obscenities, according to an ABC News report. The targeted devices were all Chinese-made Ecovacs Deebot X2 models, which have a known critical security vulnerability.

Minnesota resident Daniel Swenson was one of the victims. While watching TV, he noticed his robot vacuum malfunctioning. “It sounded like a broken-up radio signal,” he told ABC News.