Exploit Allows for Takeover of Fleets of Unitree Robots

Summary

A critical vulnerability in the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Wi-Fi configuration interface used by several different Unitree robots can result in a root level takeover by an attacker, security researchers disclosed on 20 September. The exploit impacts Unitree’s Go2 and B2 quadrupeds and G1 and H1 humanoids. Because the vulnerability is wireless, and the resulting access to the affected platform is complete, the vulnerability becomes wormable, say the researchers, meaning “an infected robot can simply scan for other Unitree robots in BLE range and automatically compromise them, creating a robot botnet that spreads without user intervention.”Initially discovered by security researchers Andreas Makris and Kevin Finisterre, UniPwn takes advantage of several security lapses that are still present in the firmware of Unitree robots as of 20 September, 2025. As far as IEEE Spectrum is aware, this is the first major public exploit of a commercial humanoid platform.Unitree Robots’ BLE Security Flaw ExposedLike many robots, Unitree’s robots use an initial BLE connection to make it easier for a user to set up a Wi-Fi network connection. The BLE packets that the robot accepts are encrypted, but those encryption keys are hardcoded and were published on X (formerly Twitter) by Makris in July. Although the robot does validate the contents of the BLE packets to make sure that the user is authenticated, the researchers say that all it takes to become an authenticated user is to encrypt the string ‘unitree’ with the hardcoded keys and the robot will let someone in. From there, an attacker can inject arbitrary code masquerading as the Wi-Fi SSID and password, and when the robot attempts to connect to Wi-Fi, it will execute that code without any validation and with root privileges.“A simple attack might be just to reboot the robot, which we published as a proof-of-concept,” explains Makris. “But an attacker could do much more sophisticated things: It would be possible to have a trojan imp...