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Recently we learned of a Russian website which had streaming links to thousands of web-cameras from around the world, showing everything from children sleeping in their cribs, to shop-fronts and office CCTV. While the site was quickly taken down, its creator has now given an interview where he claims to have hacked the cameras in order to prove their lax security.
Speaking with the Telegraph, the person responsible said that the cameras were only hackable because of “lazy,” security on the part of their creators. Linksys, the manufacturer of one of the leak's most common cameras, has pledged to look into the security of its cameras in the wake of the hack.
The person responsible however, didn't claim any nefarious underpinnings, instead suggesting that he did it in order to point out how problematic a lot of camera security is. He wasn't just pointing the finger at the manufacturers however, suggesting that many people who install such cameras leave them with default passwords, which are easily guessable or retrievable from an online resource.
Since the media outbreak about the hack last week, over 100,000 cameras have been secured, which the hacker takes responsibility for and is quite proud of. He also stated, when prompted by The Telgraph, that he believees everyone deserves the right to privacy in their own home, but that there was no other way in his mind, that he could convince people to tighten their securitty, other than the prove that it had been broken.
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KitGuru Says: Is this going to make you guys more likely to better password protect yourselves in the future?
Good.
Man makes a fair point and no one can hate him for that.
People should be thanking him.
The headline ought to have read, “Security Scameras”
Exactly, he’s done these companies a favour as it wasn’t a form of malicious hacking… If this is the only way to be heard by these companies I cannot fault him for doing this.
He may very well be offered a chance to help these companies in the near future, who knows.
It’s scary that this can happen and people don’t even put a token effort into trying to keep it from happening. ._.
Spell checker has also been an issue of hacking as of late >.>
There’s no scam, that title would be sensationalist rubbish. The cameras are perfectly secure if A) You don’t set them up for remote access. and B) Make sure you change the password from the default password when you decide to open the camera up to the internet.