Unpatched Shark Vacuum Flaws Expose Millions to Remote Code Execution via AWS IoT Misconfiguration

A security researcher publishing under the handle tokay0 has disclosed an unpatched vulnerability in SharkNinja’s Shark robot vacuum cleaners that could allow an attacker to remotely control other Shark vacuums across the same AWS region. The flaw, which affects models such as the RV2320EDUS and AV1102ARUS, stems from a misconfigured AWS IoT policy that grants overly permissive publish and subscribe access on the $aws/things/* topic. By physically extracting the device certificate from a Shark vacuum’s flash memory via UART and U-Boot console access, an attacker can use that certificate to send arbitrary commands to any other Shark vacuum in the same AWS region. The device shadow’s Exec_Command field is processed by the management daemon appd, which passes commands to popen, enabling remote code execution. The researcher demonstrated a cross-model attack, landing a reverse shell on an AV1102ARUS and accessing its camera feed. Over a 24-hour period, tokay0 observed 1,517,605 unique Shark serial numbers in one AWS region, with 44% (673,816) emitting an Exec_Response, indicating they run the command handler. The vulnerability was reported to SharkNinja on March 1, 2026, but remains unpatched as of July 2026. The fix is server-side, requiring SharkNinja to update the AWS IoT policy to scope topics to individual devices using ${iot:Connection.Thing.ThingName}. AWS Device Defender’s IOT_POLICY_OVERLY_PERMISSIVE_CHECK audit check flags this exact misconfiguration as critical. No CVE has been assigned. The only mitigation for owners is to disconnect the vacuum from Wi-Fi, which disables app control and scheduling.