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Here is Yarbo’s promise to fix the robot mower that ran me over
Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech News Close News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All News Here is Yarbo’s promise to fix the robot mower that ran me over A detailed pledge from the robot lawn mower company. A detailed pledge from the robot lawn mower company. by Sean Hollister Close Sean Hollister Senior Editor Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Sean Hollister May 8, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC Link Share Gift Image: Yarbo Sean Hollister Close Sean Hollister Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Sean Hollister is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget. Yesterday, I told you how a hacker ran me over with a robot lawn mower . We explained how thousands of these bladed Chinese robots, made by Yarbo, could be hijacked with ease — exposing people’s GPS coordinates, Wi-Fi passwords, email addresses, and more to any casual hacker who comes along. Today, Yarbo has issued a thorough 1,200-word response that you can read in full below. The company is confirming the security researcher’s findings, apologizing, and providing a detailed plan to tackle many of its self-created security issues head-on. Yarbo writes that it’s already temporarily cut off remote access and is addressing many of its most head-smacking issues, like how root passwords were the same for every single robot and were left in easy places for hackers to find. “In the future, each device will use its own independent credentials to prevent one affected device from impacting the entire fleet,” Yarbo writes. The company says its first wave of security updates should roll out within one week. Importantly, though, Yarbo is not yet committing to remove the single most troubling thing about these robots. The company writes that it will still have a remote backdoor into Yarbo’s robots, only now one that is “limited to authorized internal company personnel, may only be used after user authorization has been obtained, and will be gradually brought under audit logging.” To be clear, Yarbo already previously claimed that its remote access was only available to authorized employees; our story proved that was not true. But giving the company the benefit of the doubt: why not remove the tunnel entirely, or make it an opt-in installation? Why do Yarbo’s customers not get to decide whether their robots have a persistent backdoor? I’ve asked the company those exact questions, and we’ll update with its answer. Yarbo’s statement also tries to suggest that the vulnerabilities we’ve seen are because of “historical” or “legacy” services, implying that perhaps some of the company’s robots were more secure. We’ve asked Yarbo what percent of its robots are on those historical services as opposed to current ones. Security researcher Andreas Makris, who discovered the vulnerabilities, says he hasn’t yet been able to check whether he can still access them after Yarbo’s changes. It sounds like the company is taking him seriously, now, though. “Yarbo has initiated direct communication with me and has taken the positive step of establishing a dedicated security response center. We are currently in discussions regarding the remediation process, and they have assured me that these fixes are their highest priority,” he says. Here is Yarbo’s full update to customers: I’m writing this directly because the issues raised in the recent security report deserve a direct response, not a corporate one. On May 7, 2026, security researcher Andreas Makris published a detailed report identifying serious vulnerabilities in Yarbo’s remote diagnostic, credential management, and data-handling systems. The core technical findings are accurate. I would like to thank Mr. Andreas Makris for his work in identifying these issues and for his persistence in bringing them to our attention. I also recognize that our initial response did not adequately reflect the seriousness of the issues he identified. As co-founder, I’m accountable for what shipped on our products, and I’m accountable for the response. Our engineering, product, legal, and customer support teams are working on remediation as the highest priority. What follows is my account of what was found, what we’ve already fixed, what we’re actively fixing, and what we’re committing to change in how we operate going forward. Based on our preliminary review, the issues primarily relate to historical design choices in parts of Yarbo’s remote diagnostic, access management, and data handling systems. Specifically, certain legacy support and maintenance capabilities did not provide users with sufficient visibility or control, and some authenti
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- A detailed pledge from the robot lawn mower company.
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