Black Hat 2013 - Exploiting Network Surveillance Cameras Like a Hollywood Hacker

>The thing I’d add is that it’s not just consumer-grade products with this problem, there are plenty of supposedly professional-grade devices where the firmware is junk too. Absolutely. An example: ▶ this video There are $5000 security cameras placed in very sensitive areas with security just as poor as the $50 trash you can buy from Office Depot (or at least it was the case 8 years ago).

These vague "The Chinese are up to something but we cannot reveal what" isn't really helpful, particularly given the current trade tensions This is exacerbated by the very poor levels of security in these devices in general: DEF CON 23 - Robinson and Mitchell - Knocking my neighbors kids cruddy drone offline link However, to put things into perspective, purpose built security cameras -- even expensive ones from well reputed industry brands -- have had similar very poor levels of very poor security for many years. ▶ this video It's not really a problem of drones. It's a problem with the poor levels of security in consumer devices in general. It's "as if" the situation has been engineered to let bad actors do lots of spying.

Most of the out-of-band management systems (aka IPMI/DRAC/LOM) that server vendors use are built by the same 2-3 companies and rebranded. These companies churn out some truly horrible software with little consideration for security. It's often difficult to automate firmware updates, so they tend to stay vulnerable. It's a similar situation to webcams: ▶ this video

Ah, security cameras. Never-updated linux boxes, frequently with homegrown http servers, often with secret hardcoded credentials in clear text laying around in the firmware blob. ▶ this video

Here's a pretty fun 2 year old talk from Blackhat, re surveillance camera firmware and how s*tty they are: ▶ this video