So Maybe These Hackable Hotel Robots Were Not the Best Idea

Japan's Henn-na Hotel has come under fire for a vulnerability in its guest-facing robots. They can reportedly be hacked into and used to spy on customers.

• The company is focused on creating the hotel of the future, but has also laid off some of its robotic staff in the past because they were more troublesome than helpful.

• Henn-na Hotel management has issued an apology for its robots' security flaw.

It sounds like the plot of a futuristic sci-fi movie—a squad of friendly robots in a Japanese hotel have been hacked to spy on guests. Except, the future is now.

The Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki states that it wants to bring technology into nearly every facet of the hospitality experience. But a new hack, discovered by security engineer Lance R. Vick a few weeks ago, brings some caution to that bold mission.

Vick noted on Twitter that the robots, which are meant to function similarly to an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant-connected smart device, have been

compromised. They're for guests to ask about the weather, start the coffee machine, set reminders, and more.

What they weren't designed to do, which Vick first uncovered a few weeks back, is spy on customers. Vick found that the bed-facing Tapia robots—created by MJI Robotics in Tokyo, Japan after a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $14,500 back in 2016—could be hacked, allowing access to the cameras and microphones, remotely. That made it possible for hackers to watch and listen to guests.

He said that he made the hotel chain aware of the security flaw, but received no response after 90 days so went public.

The hotel's apology statement, translated into English, notes that as a result of the investigation into the robots, it was able to confirm that "no unauthorized applications were installed" and that "all of the countermeasures against the

unauthorized access method...have been completed."

But this wasn't the first time the hotel chain, which operates 10 hotels in Japan, has been made aware of flaws in its Tapia robots. According to The Tokyo Reporter, the chain received an email from a guest who pointed out a security vulnerability in one of the robots.

The manufacturer of the Tapia robots reportedly said that "the risk of unauthorized access was low," and instead believed that the guest just wanted their money back for the hotel room. So maybe putting robots in hotels wasn't the brightest move or maybe it's just some robo-hospitality growing pains.

Either way, please stay on top of security updates.