Shocking video of people's private lives are streaming over the internet.
Hackers are able to easily tap into personal security cameras and stream them on websites for the world to see, and it can happen in a matter of 10 seconds. Most if not all the owners of these devices have no idea they are being watched.
It's happening in Tampa Bay and the ABC Action News I-Team found some video they should never be able to see. They recently interviewed KnowBe4 CEO Stu Sjouwerman in our Clearwater office.
"It gets pretty scary, pretty quickly," Stu Sjouwerman.
A Russian website allows users to click on just about any city and see live feeds directly into people's homes.
The I-Team found footage from both outdoor security feeds and indoor security feeds. Among the videos they found were two cameras streaming live video from the University of South Florida's volleyball court, a naked man in Georgia walking around his home, a live medical operation in Missouri, a young girl in Georgia sleeping in her bed, and countless daycare centers in Florida -- babies in nurseries and school aged children.
"Very unsettling" says an anonymous father. He was streaming live while in his nursery changing his newborn. He had no idea. "You have to watch everything because anything connected to the internet can obviously be accessed and probably pretty easily."
It's easier to do than you might think. Most security cameras are set up with a default password. If that password isn't changed, that's all hackers need to access your pricate stream.
"Change the password of any device that you get in your house" Stu says. This should be done immediately with any new device before it's even used for the first time.
Stu tells us there's greater risk.
As with most modern cybercrime, there is almost no such thing as a one time threat or attack. Once someone can get into your cameras, it is much easier for them to then gain access to your entire network and its devices.
Stu says some websites are even selling recordings of your live stream video to fetish sites.
"Once they catch something it can be sold, whatever it is," he said.
Cameras are live streaming on this particular site from Tampa to Sarasota, and all over Florida.
This type of hack is nothing new, in fact there were a few stories back in 2014 warning the public about the existence of a similar Russian website (could be the same one) that then had access to about 73,011 locations with unsecured security cameras in 256 different countries.
It's also helpful to keep in mind default passwords may not be the only vulnerability when it comes to home security cameras. You should at the very least do a quick Google search for the specific model to see if there are other known vulnerabilities. Just take a look at this huge flaw that was discovered in a specific D-Link camera model. Here is a good list of suggestions for ensuring the safety of your home security system.
