She keeps the details of the security holes for herself, Madeleine Berner, an engineering student at KTH who has done the study. And the Spanish company, which built the system, has been given the opportunity to clog the holes.  

- We have reported eleven vulnerabilities that manufacturers need to fix, but I can't reveal how they looked or how we did.  

Takes over in three steps

Instead, Madeleine Berner wants to talk more generally about three levels of intrusion:

- First you get in, often by sending an email with a link that the recipient clicks on and thus gets hacked. Then you take over the camera. In the third stage you have full control and use the garage system to start manipulating other connected things.  

Part of larger networks

Ultimately, the hijacked garage system can become part of a much larger network which, for example, may have the purpose of acquiring cryptocurrency. And it can then be used to finance criminal activities.  

- So in the end, your garage may have become criminal! says Berner.  

The “Internet of Things” is called the features many have in their homes and which they can remotely control over the Internet. It can be smart door locks, smart thermostats, smart alarms, smart surveillance or smart babysitting. It is practical but also provides openings for attackers. An ongoing race is underway, where the products become better at resisting attacks, and the attackers at the same time become better at getting into the products.  

"Lack of safety"

Madeleine Berner thinks that we in Sweden lack a basic security mind:  

- For example, many use Messenger, which is not fully encrypted. In Finland, more Whatsapp use, which has an end-to-end encryption that prevents the company from reading even the conversation.  

The garage door security leaks contain a warning. And one should expect that most smart home systems suffer from this kind of vulnerability.  

- If your garage sits with the home, and you lock the garage door but not the door from garage to home, then it is easy for thieves to plunder both garage and home at the same time, says Madeleine Berner.