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Home Security Cameras: Safety and Privacy Issues Explained
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How secure are home security cameras?

They say that home is where the heart is, but, it’s actually where you feel the safest. Unfortunately, with so many mishaps around the country, homeowners have begun to beef up their security. Alarms and burglar-proof bars just don’t cut it anymore – security cameras are the norm, and since crime is on the rise, they’re here to stay.

According to a Home Advisor report, around 30 million homeowners across the United States have purchased household surveillance systems.

The same report reveals that the average cost of installing a Fort Knox-grade home security system (or, at the very least a decent one) is $1,333 (between $655 and $2,011). Despite the cost, people are willing to go along with it, knowing that their home and surroundings are safe. But are they really?

The great Hackaton

As you know, virtually any electronic device can be tapped into, hijacked, hacked, or whatever you like to call it. The Medtronics case proves my point. So, around 2017, Medtronics, a US-based med equipment manufacturer was getting ready to push a next-gen insulin pump.

With FDA’s approval, the pump nearly made it to market until a team of security researchers blew the whistle on the project, calling it a disaster waiting to happen – well, not literally.

Long story made short, Medtronics created a radio-controlled insulin pump for patients with type 1. The dosage could be adjusted via remote, thus reducing the patient’s reliance on caretaker or nurse.

MiniMeds, as they were called, had to go through a major redesign after the two researchers proved that the device can easily be hijacked with a simplistic app and used to deliver a fatal overdose.

Sorry for the long and tedious intro. I just wanted to prove a point – if a system as ‘closed’ as an insulin pump can be hacked, so can security cameras.

In most cases, it’s poor cybersecurity hygiene (people too lazy to change default passwords, connecting cameras to unsecured routers, buying second-hand, etc.). However, there are cases where the devices themselves have design flaws that allow malicious actors to take control. It does have an Orwellian appeal to it, but this type of scenario is very real and extremely frightful.

Just to get an idea of what poor online security hygiene can get you into, I give you the 2016 ‘video-streaming experiment’. Apparently, a site that originated in Russia ‘leaked’ videos from over 15,000 locations in as many as 256 countries. Some big players were caught in the crosshairs: Linksys, Foscam, Panasonic, Hikvision, and AvTech.

There’s a lot of scuttlebutt about home security cameras and I’m here to sort it out. So, here’s everything you need to know about surveillance devices.

How do you hijack a security camera?

Before talking about how home security cameras can be hacked, it’s imperative to know a little bit about them. There are several types of home surveillance systems – we have indoor and outdoor cameras, nanny cams, wireless cameras, wireless cameras with motion-sensing technology, IP cameras, CCTVs, wired cams, fake cams, you name it.

As far as indoor surveillance systems are concerned, homeowners tend to go with a Wi-Fi solution. It makes sense; compared to wired cameras that require some degree of expertise to set up, Wi-Fi cameras are out-of-the-box ready, meaning that you only need to power them up, find a proper place to set them, pair with the mobile or desktop app and that’s it. However, a good one is going to cost you a pretty penny, that’s for sure.

So, we have wired cameras, that run in a closed circuit, private CCTVs that are part of a larger surveillance system, and Wi-Fi cameras that are hooked up to your home’s router via an IP. If you just want to make sure that everything’s hunky-dory while you’ll away, a wireless camera hanged just above the doorway is more than enough.

On the other hand, if you want to keep tabs on what’s happening in your backyard or on the other side of the front door, it would be best to go with a closed-circuit and wired surveillance system. It’s the best safety measure today for that those package pirates (people who steal Amazon packages from your front door after delivery).

I won’t go into many details about security cameras because we’re here to talk about hacking and, of course, appropriate countermeasures.

Now that you know a little bit about the various types of home surveillance systems, let’s talk about hacking. As you probably know by now, any electronic device can be compromised (see the above example about Medtronic’s MiniMed). How should I go about this?

Well, in terms of cybersecurity, home security cameras aren’t that secure. What’s that supposed to mean? Think about it – you can really install antivirus software on your surveillance device. The best you can do would be to connect it to a secured network. But even that won’t guarantee total safety.

Let’s start out small. Wi-Fi cameras connect to your home’s router via an IP. That there’s a pain point; one of many, unfortunately. IP hacking or hijacking is, indeed, one of the methods used by malicious actors to seize control of your home security camera, but hardly the only one of the most popular.

In a nutshell, IP hacking means stealing your credentials via IP address impersonation. They use your PC’s com port to obtain info such as your email address, financial data, and everything commonly used to identify you as a living, breathing, and praying person.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand – the most common way to tap into a home security camera would be credentials stuffing. How does that work? Well, imagine being a hacker and stumbling upon a database on the dark web that contains usernames and passwords for routers. ‘What to do, what to do?’ asks the hacker on the night before Christmas when all’s quiet around the…basement.

What usually happens is that malicious hackers tend to sort of try to remote-connect to routers, using the credentials buried in those databases.

You might think this an exercise in futility, but it’s not – according to a report by Recorded Future, approximately 30,000 accounts get compromised each year. The reason – people don’t seem to think it’s important to change their routers’ default passwords. More on that later.
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