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Your IP camera is a computer

It’s a sad fact that in the security industry, cost more often than not clinches the deal. This is not always the case as there are some people out there buying security because they know what they want to get out of it, but in many cases it is still a grudge purchase and the cheapest offer wins – or the guy who knows the guy and/or sweetens the deal, wins.

A couple of decades ago this may have been acceptable, but not today. In a world where everything is connected, you can’t leave vulnerabilities open to exploitation because they will be exploited. Take the example of Hikvision a few months ago when its cameras were used to compromise a network. The issue was publicised and Hikvision’s name was associated with the breach, but in the end it was not the camera manufacturer’s fault.

In this particular instance, the installer hadn’t bothered to change the default password on the IP cameras, allowing hackers to easily access the cameras and then the network. Hikvision has since said it is updating its firmware to ensure that installers have to change the password when installing a camera. Unfortunately this won’t help unless the installer uses a decent password and not “password” for every camera. And that won’t happen unless the customer insists on strong passwords and actually manages the process to ensure it’s done.

Another more recent example comes from Israel where researchers found malware had been installed on a mall’s cameras – again the default passwords were left in place by an irresponsible installer – and the cameras were used to launch a denial of service attack. The attack was launching about 20 000 requests per second from around 900 IP cameras in this particular mall and other cameras around the world – a global CCTV attack. (You can see more at https://www.incapsula.com/blog/cctv-ddos-botnet-back-yard.html, short URL: https://goo.gl/NEh0Kp).

Identity and access

And on the subject of access and identity, our Access & Identity Management Handbook 2016 is being posted at the same time as the November issue, so make sure you get yours. It has 144 pages of information, trends and products to ensure you get a head start on access control in 2016. As always comments are welcome at andrew@technews.co.za

Andrew Seldon

Editor

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