Two events this year show what can happen with home security cameras.
1. An Illinois couple said a hacker spoke to their baby through one of their Nest security cameras and then later hurled obscenities at them, CBS station WBBM-TV reports. Arjun Sud told the station he was outside his 7-month-old son’s room Sunday outside Chicago and he heard someone talking. Later that night, Arjun Sud noticed the Nest thermostat they have upstairs had been raised to 90 degrees. He suspected the hacker was behind that too.
2. Laura Lyons of Orinda, California told the San Jose Mercury News that her smart home security camera was infiltrated after it said on Sunday that three North Korean missiles were headed to Los Angeles, Chicago and Ohio. The warning was preceded by a blaring alarm, Lyons told the newspaper. The message said the US was retaliating and affected areas had three hours to evacuate, she said. Lyons checked news stations for coverage of the apparent attack, but found nothing. When she realized the message was coming from the Nest Cam sitting above her TV, she called the company, which is part of Google, to find out what was going on.
Further news on this from LiveMINT includes:
Connected cameras accounted for 15.2% of IoT attacks in 2018, up from 3.5% in 2017, highlighting how their role has increased significantly in just one year, points out Ritesh Chopra, country manager-consumer business unit, Symantec.
According to Kaspersky, most cameras provide access to feed through a web interface, which provides a full-fledged management console to users. In other words, each camera has its own little website. The problem is that these websites and broadcasts can be easily found by specialized search systems such as Shodan and Censys. “With access to smart cameras, cybercriminals could also spy on the owners and use that knowledge to decide a good time to break into their home,” rues Chopra.
As per Kaspersky, the problem with most smart cameras is that both users and camera makers prioritize ease-of-use over device security. That’s why surveillance cameras can be easily hacked with brute force. A major challenge with smart cameras is that they lack both memory and compute power to run a security solution on top.
Smart City Cyber Security 