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BadPower attack corrupts fast chargers to melt or set devices on fire

• teruakohatu 6y ago
  > The Tencent team said they verified their BadPower attack in practice. Researchers said they selected 35 fast chargers from 234 models available on the market and found that 18 models from 8 vendors were vulnerable. I would rather throw my charger out if it had a bug and buy a new one than risk someone intentionly or accidentally (compromised phone) turning it into an electric match.
• thedanbob 6y ago
  > The bad news is that the research team also analyzed 34 fast-charging chips, around which the fast charger models had been built. Researchers said that 18 chip vendors did not ship chips with a firmware update option, meaning there was no way to update the firmware on some fast charger chips. Isn't this a good thing? If you can't update the firmware you can't infect it. Conversely, if you still can infect it via some vulnerability then the same technique can be used to "infect" it with fixed firmware.
• floatingatoll 6y ago
  Whether firmware can be updated or not, how will any of these charges ever be found and replaced/repaired? What are the logistics of executing such a recall successfully, such that people aren’t vulnerable?