Privacy Risks from Using a Surveillance Camera

All the devices that we use in our day to day can suffer vulnerabilities and problems that affect our security. Today we have a large number of teams in what we know as the Internet of Things. All of them can be very useful and offer a lot of functions. However, the risks must also be taken into account. In this article we echo a story that informs about the privacy risks of using security cameras at home.

Privacy issues with security cameras

It is very common that both private users and companies have surveillance cameras . As we know they can be connected to the network, they may allow us to access remotely to control everything that happens in one place. This is very useful if we want to always preserve security.

Privacy Risks from Using a Surveillance Camera

Now, the truth is that this type of device has often been a problem for privacy . They can have multiple vulnerabilities that allow access by intruders that could even attack other computers connected on the same network.

This study has included security researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Queen Mary University of London . They have conducted various tests to see if an attacker could access the information and thus compromise privacy simply by passively tracking the data.

The findings showed that the traffic generated by the cameras could be monitored by attackers and used to predict when a house is occupied or not. This is something that logically violates privacy and also puts the security of the users themselves at risk.

The researchers even found that future activity in the home could be predicted based on past traffic generated by the camera, which could leave users at increased risk of burglary by discovering when the home would be unoccupied.

They discovered that a possible attacker could detect when the camera is loading movement and even distinguish the type of movement, such as sitting, walking … This is achieved without inspecting the video content, but simply observing the loading speed of those cameras through of Internet data.

First study that analyzes the traffic of a webcam

They have indicated that it is the first study of this type that analyzes the traffic of a security webcam . A method that, as we have seen, could allow a potential intruder to obtain information from that home. You could find out if there is really someone inside the house, what movements they make, analyze the history of when they could be outside or inside the house, etc.

It is very important that when using this type of device we take into account the importance of security. It is essential that we always have the latest versions and patches installed. On many occasions vulnerabilities arise that can be exploited by hackers to carry out their attacks. We need to correct those flaws. We already saw in another article some safety tips for the webcam.