Samsung 'Smart' Camera Easily Hackable

An anonymous reader writes "The op-co.de blog has a post about the incredibly poor job Samsung did securing its new NX300 'smart camera.' One of the camera's primary features is that it can join Wi-Fi networks — this lets it upload photos, but it also lets you use your smartphone to access the photos on the camera directly. You can also connect with NFC. Unfortunately, the way they set it up is extremely insecure. First, there's an NFC tag that tells the camera where to download the app, and also the name of the access point set up by the camera. 'The tag is writable, so a malicious user can easily 'hack' your camera by rewriting its tag to download some evil app, or to open nasty links in your web browser, merely by touching it with an NFC-enabled smartphone.' Things aren't much better with Wi-Fi — a simple port scan reveals that the camera is running an unprotected X server (running Enlightenment). When the camera checks for new firmware, it helpfully reports your physical location. Its software also sets up unencrypted access points."

Comments

DMCA says this isn't so!

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter how trivial or good the protection is, the DMCA says that because it's protected, no matter how trivially, then it's illegal to hack it!

And because it's illegal, it's impossible to hack! Making it illegal always puts a stop to everything. That's why we have no murders, no thefts, once our brilliant politicians figure this out we can get on to business and make crime illegal too.

Anyways, the point I'm making is this was a foreseeable consequence of the DMCA.

Re:DMCA says this isn't so!

[NatasRevol]

Please never leave your babied little home.

http://kottke.org/14/04/traffi...

I'm Safe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have this camera but it can't be hacked. I live in Denver, which is in the AFC.

Is this really likely to happen?

[DrXym]

I've never seen one of these cameras and I doubt many other people have either. Nor does it seem likely that there are hackers standing by to "touch" the powered up, wifi connected camera with an NFC phone without the owner of the camera noticing. And when all is said a relatively trivial patch would correct the issue.

Re:Is this really likely to happen?

[jeffmflanagan]

>I've never seen one of these cameras and I doubt many other people have either.
Agreed.

>Nor does it seem likely that there are hackers standing by to "touch" the powered up, wifi connected camera
Agreed.

>And when all is said a relatively trivial patch would correct the issue.
Yes, but it should have been secure out of the box. Many manufacturers don't give a lot of thought to security, and that needs to change. If someone can own your camera over their WiFi, they can load an app that gives them access to YOUR WiFi when you get home. That's pretty serious.

Hack Off!

[Mr D from 63]

I have begun to despise the term "hacked". As anything that can be used in any manner other than its purest fundamentally intended purpose, is considered to be hackable.

Not everything needs to be secure. My mailbox in not secure. I have photos printed at by others. When I start taking nude selfies, I'll make sure wifi is turned off.

The takeaway

[93 Escort Wagon]

Wow, someone actually is still using Enlightenment...

A trivial thing impossible to do

[SuperKendall]

And when all is said a relatively trivial patch would correct the issue.

The patch is always trivial, the ability to get it to all people that have the device nearly impossible.

X11 you say?

[mx_mx_mx]

This would be pure awesomeness to show goatse on the screen of the camera to unsuspecting viewer while he aims for the shot....

Re:OK and?

[Noah Haders]

the issue is the camera can act as a gateway into otherwise secure systems. kind of like how the target CC hack happened through the HVAC system.

As if Canon/Nikon do this better

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

While this camera should of course be more secure - what exactly are we comparing it to ?

Do you think your Canons and Nikons are safe? Lots of models allow remote control using either USB or Wi-Fi. USB requires a cable from your smartphone running the malicious software, while Wi-Fi obviously does not. For Wi-Fi you need to get past the encryption, but the joke is, lots of people actually run their camera's Wi-Fi without encryption (surprisingly, some photo blogs advise it for ease of use). You're still not home free though as there's a pairing process when Wi-Fi is used, but if the camera owner's smartphone is active on Wi-Fi (not necessarily even the same network - just turned on), this is not hard to beat either.

If you can get connected to these cameras either via USB (completely unprotected) or Wi-Fi, it is not just possible to manipulate, retrieve, replace, wipe, etc all images present, you can fully control the camera's settings and even send malformed commands to completely disable the camera, only to be (potentially - it depends on the model) revived by a Canon/Nikon repair center. This while most users think the worst that can happen is someone copying their pictures ...

You think the NX300 is bad? Consider that pretty much nobody owns an NX300, while virtually all photojournalists active in countries with questionable rights to free speech have one of these affected Canons and Nikons ...

Re:As if Canon/Nikon do this better

[penguinoid]

If you can get connected to these cameras either via USB (completely unprotected) or Wi-Fi, it is not just possible to manipulate, retrieve, replace, wipe, etc all images present, you can fully control the camera's settings and even send malformed commands to completely disable the camera, only to be (potentially - it depends on the model) revived by a Canon/Nikon repair center. This while most users think the worst that can happen is someone copying their pictures ...

And if you think that's bad, they could also connect their hammer to your phone, and send commands that will permanently disable your phone.

Re:As if Canon/Nikon do this better

[Darinbob]

The thing is that you can't have high security and also have high convenience. Thus consumer devices are intentionally given insecure features in order to make them more usable. Thus, drivers that automatically install on your computer merely because you plugged in your phone to power it (damn you microsoft, you are not allowed to install random files without my permission). So similarly with this camera I assume the marketing people did not want to bother the computer illiterate user with all sorts of "are you sure you want to want to this into the ?" questions.

I Can't Get Past This

[carrier lost]

...a simple port scan reveals that the camera is running an unprotected X server (running Enlightenment).

And here I thought I was the only one running Enlightenment