Autonomous (Paladin hacks the sprinklers)

So Paladin came up with a plan. He initiated a pairing sequence with the sprinklers by disguising himself as a really old sensor model. Because the sprinkler system wanted to pair with sensors, it agreed to download some ancient, unpatched drivers so it could take requests from its new, elderly friend. Now it was a simple matter of exploiting a security vulnerability in those unpatched drivers, and Paladin was soon on the network, running with all the privileges of the sprinkler system. Which had access to quite a lot, including house layout and camera footage. After all, you wouldn’t want to start watering a room with people in it. That camera footage would tell them everything they needed to know about who had been here and when. Paladin felt a rush of pride. Maybe he couldn’t do social engineering on humans yet, but he could still fool most machines.

Annalee Newitz, Autonomous, pg. 57, loc. 868-874. Kindle Edition