United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned people on the disadvantages of smart cameras which are considered to be “fantastic innovations”.
The NCSC’s technical director, Dr. Ian Levy said these devices were vulnerable to cyber-attackers. According to him, easy-to-guess default passwords might give a hacker the opportunity to secretly observe a home through connected devices.
Dr. Levy gave many examples of devices being accessed by hackers without permission; he gave an example of an attacker who spoke to a young girl pretending to be Father Christmas. In another case, a couple from Leeds has been watched thousands of times online without knowing. And also a case of a security researcher who easily breached an adult toy that had a camera attached to it in 2017.
Steps and guidance for owners of smart cameras;
- Changing the default password, which is often an obvious word like “admin” or “00000” to a unique one that no one can guess
- Keeping the camera’s software, sometimes called firmware, updated
- Switching off features that let you check the cameras remotely if you don’t need or use it
These suggestions came as a result of the growing concern about the potential dangers posed by the “internet of things”. A lot of connected devices go into people’s homes every day, cyber-security risks are becoming intensely personal, with challenges in protecting people’s privacy and data.
A good example of these are cameras that provide details of what is going on inside your house; one of the main problems with companies that produce these devices is that they make it relatively cheap and fast to capture the new market, they sometimes fail to consider the security of these cameras. This is leading to more warnings and laws to mandate security standards.
Some experts noted that such regulations are “a positive step”. Nevertheless, they believe additional steps should be taken such as mandatory two-factor authentication; this was according to Blake Kozak, a smart home analyst with Omdia. According to him, “more detailed legislation will be needed to enforce best practices by brands, from components in the devices to the security of data centers.”
The NSCS’s latest guidance also recommends disabling UPnP (universal plug and play) and “port forwarding” in the settings of your internet router- technologies often used by legitimate services such as online gaming. Courtesy: bbc.com