Security News > 2023 > May > Drone goggles maker claims firmware sabotaged to ‘brick’ devices
Orqa, a maker of First Person View drone racing goggles, claims that a contractor introduced code into its devices' firmware that acted as a time bomb designed to brick them.
On early Saturday, Orqa started receiving reports from customers surprised to see their FPV.One V1 goggles enter bootloader mode and become unusable.
The company revealed hours after devices began getting bricked when powered up, the issue resulted from a firmware bug "Caused by the date/time feature."
Orqa says the contractor behind the so-called "Ransomware time-bomb attack" has allegedly posted an "Unauthorised binary file" that should purportedly address the bug bricking FPV.One goggles since Saturday morning.
"Since the perpetrator has gone public with what he did and posted what we fear is another compromised piece of firmware, we decided it is in our users' interest to be made aware of the situation and warned about the risks of installing a likely compromised firmware on their devices."
The fixed firmware is expected to be available until the end of the day after the new version is deemed safe for public release.