Hema recalls “dangerous” water kettles, removes USB sticks from store shelves

Hema has put a recall on water kettles that could lead to dangerous situations as well as USB sticks which contain serious security vulnerabilities. The water kettle involved is Ketelbinkie with the product code 80.00.7607. Hema released a statement on their website warning of the defective water kettle, stating that the loose bottom casing causes water to run out and could promote burning. They have advised against any further use of the appliance. Customers can return the kettle to a Hema store for a full refund. The +USB Sticks, sticks with 8GB and 16GB of storage which come with free access to cloud storage, have been found to contain outdated software that is infested with errors. The discovery was made by security researchers in the Hague’s’ hackerspace, Revspace. An anonymous hacker told broadcaster NU that, “Almost every security mistake you can make was in there. It was kind of bingo with a full card.” Pin codes for example offered no effective protection while some of the software is detected as malware by virus scanners. Poor cloud security allowed for the downloading of files stored by others, while a configuration error gave access to the administrator password. In that way, attackers could obtain all customer data. Computer giant Apple was reported to be the company behind the web service, however, they are reported to have absolutely nothing to do with the developer of the cloud service. Both the USB sticks and the cloud software are not produced by Hema itself, both are done by an external partner. A quick analysis of cloud security proved the solution to be only partially successful after claims made by the company that security had been improved.