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Cheap Web Cams Can Open Permanent, Difficult-To-Spot Backdoors Into Networks
An anonymous reader writes: They might seems small and relatively insignificant, but cheap wireless web cams deployed in houses and offices (and connected to home and office networks) might just be the perfect way in for attackers. Researchers from the Vectra Threat Lab have demonstrated how easy it can be to embed a backdoor into such a web cam, with the goal of proving how IoT devices expand the attack surface of a network. They bought a consumer-grade D-Link WiFi web camera for roughly $30, and cracked it open. After installing a back-door to the Linux system that runs the camera, and then turning off the ability to update the system, they had an innocent seeming but compromised device that could be stealthily added to a network environment.
Put ANY compromised hardware on your network, and it's no longer secure. This is news?
I agree, but:
This article is good because it lets us (the good guys) send a link to this article to the ignorant guys (managers etc), so that a sense of urgency is formed. Then maybe we are allowed to allocate resources to protect ourselves - at least from the script-kiddies and the semi bad guys.
(For the really skilled bad guys, even many professional organisations will fail in the long run)
This is one reason to segregate devices and have firewall rules that control which devices can make outgoing connections. That way you can insure IoT and other devices that have no business talking to the Internet can't talk to the Internet.
I also run a monitoring job that collects MAC addresses and associated IP addresses from the router's ARP cache and reports on unexpected changes. It doesn't make it impossible to slip a device onto my network without it being noticed, but it takes a fair amount more work that the likely intruders won't be putting forth. It also helps find the MAC addresses of new equipment that doesn't like to say what it's MAC address is.
Here's a nice warm thought to keep everyone up at night: What is to keep hackers who enjoy this sort of thing from buying devices at BestBuy, hacking them to insert remote back doors, and then returning them to BestBuy the next day? If they put it back in the packaging, possibly with new shrink-wrap, they could claim they never even opened it, and it would go right back on the shelf for some unsuspecting victim to buy.
Would it matter if the device were a $20 webcam, a $2,000 desktop PC, a $50 Wifi router, or a $100 HP printer?
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
I have several 1080P Onvif china security cameras that are known to send video back to China. it is trivial to make these 100% secure and hacker proof disabling all backdoors if you have education and knowledge.
At home, I can see people having the problem as 99% of all citizens are IT Uneducated. but a business? there is ZERO excuse.
I put them on their own VLAN separate from everything else, they can only talk to the recorder PC and that PC can talk to both networks so we can view the camera streams. Camera VLAN has zero access to the internet, Recording PC that is straddling two networks has simple rules as well to prevent data leaking.
And this is the sad part. Most businesses don't have competent IT that even has the first clue about network security. Plus you should ALWAYS have no trust for any device on your network. Treat them all as hostile and only let them have what is needed to do what you want.
Businesses that don't spend money on IT that is competent deserve what they get.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.