February report from researcher found Chinese KVM had undocumented microphone and communicated with China-based servers, but many of the security issues are now addressed [Updated]

Edit 12/8/2025 5:25 pm PT: Adjusted article to reflect that the report was published in February.

In February, a Slovenian security researcher published an analysis of Sipeed’s NanoKVM that raised far-reaching concerns about the €30-€60 ($35-70) remote management device. Alarmingly, the researcher’s teardown showed the device shipped with a catalogue of security failures and an undocumented microphone that could be activated over SSH. After reporting the issues, many of those problems have been…