Slashdot Mirror
Sensitive Data Stolen Via Digital Cameras
Jack writes "ITO is running an interesting story on a new security threat connecting digital cameras and hackers." From the article: "Following a spate of reports about Bluetooth and iPods devices being used to steal sensitive data from organizations, businesses are now urging to be vigilant as hackers use digital cameras to sidestep security measures. 'Camsnuffling', the latest IT managers headache being used to computer attackers to extract and store data with the help of digital camera." We've previously discussed this problem.
Because lots of corporations and governmental bodies, particularly those dealing with sensitive data, have access to removeable media such as USB drives, CD-RW drives, and floppy drives, disabled by default.
The article ridiculously claims that "many employees use digital cameras in their day to day work" - Maybe at a photojournalism shop, but in most real businesses you'd look pretty odd connecting your camera to the PC.
It's not as ridiculous as you think.
Perhaps most keyboard jockeys may not use digital cameras, but most of the businesses I know of who have employees that leave the building outfit their employees with digital camera.
Building inspectors use them for taking pictures of job sites. Insurance agents use them for making appraisals, insurance adjusters use them for taking pictures of accidents. Rig foremen use them to take pictures of their rigs. General contractors, cabling salesmen, and land surveyors use them to take pictures of job sites.. and this is just off the top of my head. I'm hard pressed to think of a company I deal with that doesn't have at least one digital camera for staff use.
But it appears that in this case the cameras are used as USB drives. Wouldn't they also already be disabled, then?
This guy simply cut and pasted several posts from this story: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/06/125 0212&tid=172
Peeping toms with cameras are protected by the 1st amendment in situations where they wouldn't be without the camera. It varies from state to state, but in California, you can take a picture of something visible in a private room through a window as long as you aren't trespassing. Merely looking without a camera leaves it up to a jury.
1. The NA can afford to spend a lot on the security, while a company has to watch the bottom line.
I'll bet big companies have more money to spend on security than the NA. How come the source code to Windows XP isn't floating around on BitTorrent sites? (Besides the fact that if you look at it, you'll turn to stone.)
2. It's acceptable for the NA to annoy or even "piss off" some visitors with an overly stringent security proecess, whereas a company usually wouldn't want to offend guests or employees.
If I were such a customer, I would be impressed with how seriously my contractor takes security. If I were the DoD, I would demand it.
That's a great point, but isn't limited to digital cameras per se. You can do the same thing with film (and that's been the subject of a few movies).
The digital angle mostly means it's much more convenient, and with Photoshop very convenient indeed. Plus the whole memory card angle, though in the kind of scenario under discussion here a film canister wouldn't be too hard to smuggle out of a sensitive location.
I was recently walking by a ground-floor open-plan office - architects, I think - and the guy closest to the window had his back to the window. Presumably to avoid distractions. Which of course meant his ginormous LCD monitors were facing the window...
This Like That - fun with words!