Ghosty Hack

  • 4 February 2017
  • 9 replies
  • 12627 views

Please can someone help ! I've had my sonos system for 7 months and love it however a couple of nights ago the speaker in my hall started making really weird sounds, like a door opening, then half an hour later a baby started to cry from the speaker randomly for the rest of the evening. Last night I was going to bed then I heard my speaker in my bedroom produce a sound like a plate or glass breaking followed by the crying baby sound - it was really loud! It's starting to freak me out and I don't know how to stop it. It seems to only happen at night and is totally random ! None of my friends are doing this using my wifi by the way. I've read that www.fastcompany.com has managed to hack into the Sonos App which might explain what's happening however I'm not sure what I need to do to stop what's happening now. Can anyone help? Should I delete the App from my iPhone and reinstall ?

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9 replies

I have never heard this one before; but the immediate and obvious solution is to pull the power plug from the speakers at night, while you get better answers to this!
Yes thanks Kumar - I've done this now. Also sorry I didn't copy the link properly - this is what I found on fast company's website - but who knows ???

https://www.fastcompany.com/3034135/hack-your-sonos-sound-system-to-terrify-your-friends
Interesting, and for Sonos Staff/Resident Gurus, a sentence from the link cut/pasted below:
"Gotwalt's code runs off of a tiny Raspberry Pi, which can be surreptitiously connected to the same network as the Sonos speakers."
Look forward to comments! Can this be done without knowing the home Wifi address/password? Can changing the password address the issue?
Userlevel 5
Badge +10
Love this:

Once it's running on the network, the creepy little app will randomly select speakers—which are typically situated in different rooms—lower the volume, and play haunted house sound effects at frustratingly random (and thus unpredictable) intervals. The only way to detect what's happening, Gotwalt explains, is by looking at the Sonos Controller app while the sounds are playing. Otherwise, the whole thing is pretty much invisible to the victim.

Wow... with friends like yours... 🙂

This is the best post I've ever read on here.... seriously... I'm crying... LOL

So it does look like the key is inside the first sentence of the Paragraph I quoted. "Once it's running on the network...." It looks like it is a door to the Sonos system... not a free pass on your network security. Change your network Password and just in case... look for a small, unexpected computer running somewhere in your house physically connected to your ethernet (that could be any port on the back of a Sonos device as well as on your router).

I love this... really... wish I had the technical talent to build it...
Well that's a good start ! I'll change my network password and keep you posted ! It has scared the cr@p out of me !!! At least I've made your day shark&t lol ! Its one of the most random things that's ever happened to me!
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Hey Chryssy, that sounds like a g-g-g-ghost!

As the others suggested, likely it's a prank being played on you by a friend or housemate that set up a device at some point there. If you'd like to submit a diagnostic from your Sonos system and reply back with your confirmation number the next time you hear it playing, we can at least let you know what the IP address of the device is.

If it's wireless, the network password change will do the trick, otherwise, you'll need to take a survey of all the network ports in the house.

Who you gonna call? Us. You can call us.
Recently: listening to brasil station and suddenly it stops and i receive advertisement in dutch language and station is blocked for some time.....weird
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Recently: listening to brasil station and suddenly it stops and i receive advertisement in dutch language and station is blocked for some time.....weird
That is odd, sounds unrelated to what they were seeing above in the thread. If this only happens on that one station, odds are it's an issue with that station's stream.
We were watching a program on TV & one of my 5 Sonos started “blooping” (the sound that the speaker makes when you adjust the volume from the speaker) randomly & erratically. We started playing a song & it then went away, but really weird. Have had the system for a little over a year & never happened before.