Vulnerabilities in protocols and software running industrial robots are by now widely known, but to date, there has been no in-depth, hands-on research that demonstrates to what extent robots can actually be compromised.

For the first time, with this research—a collaboration between Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) and the Trend Micro Forward-Looking Threat Research (FTR) Team—we have been able to analyze the impact of system-specific attacks and demonstrate attack scenarios on actual standard industrial robots in a controlled environment.