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CCTV DVR Vulnerabilities Traced To Chinese OEM Which Spurned Researchers' Advice (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: RSA security researcher Rotem Kerner has identified a common vulnerability in the firmware of 70 different CCTV DVR vendors, which allows crooks to execute code and gain root privileges on the affected devices. The problem was actually in the firmware of just one DVR sold by Chinese firm TVT. The practice of "white-labeling" products helped propagate this issue to other "manufacturers" who did nothing more than to buy a non-branded DVR, tweaked its firmware, slapped their logo on top, and sold it a their own, vulnerability included.
Recent Foscam security cameras: http://krebsonsecurity.com/201...
IoT concerns: http://thenewstack.io/snooping...
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Which wants all device and operating system vendors to standardize on vulnerabilities on the assumption that only the "good guys" will know how to exploit them.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The Chinese OEMs don't care about security or anything else. They are remarkably dense and will reject changes coming from anywhere. It's hard enough to get them to change anything when you're a paying customer, and if you do get them to change, the moment you are satisfied and think things are under control, they'll change it right back to the old way.
This is because the smart people want to be thought of as creative. When someone else is telling them what to do, they're not being creative and think they're being forced into being mindless slaves. Follow an established security vetting process? That's not what creatives do. That's following procedure, only factory assembly workers do that, and even then only because they are forced to do so. Also, being predictable violates the maxim that one should conceal one's true goals. They're not at war but the Sun Tzu thinking will tell.
Second, details are boring. If you're creative, you think of the effects you want the product to have, not the stupid security protocols it has to follow. And if the product is selling, who cares?
The Western customers who buy the OEM products are clueless about everything, that's why they're buying whitebox in the first place. We shouldn't blame them for security, although perhaps it's tempting. It's not like they can complain and get it fixed. If they make too much of a fuss the OEM will just point out that none of their other 70 customers has any problem and fire them as a customer.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Clearly the FBI is happy about this one. They like vulnerable devices.
Of all the devices to gain root on I'm fairly certain a DVR is one of the lamest. Wake me up when someone does something interesting with it.
On my common cheapo 'H960 DVR' I used Nessus for discovery. /etc/password file.
Nessus navigated my directory structure via the web interface.
Nessus showed me the contents of the
It only took me a minute to google "rainbow table" and find JTR.
It took JTR less than 1/4 hour to crack the SIX CHARACTER password WITHOUT any rainbow tables.
It took me many many many emails to convince the distributor's cust. serv. that I was talking about an actual vulnerability.
I never expected it to be secure at the price I paid.
I'm glad I can root my box.
Now I can, if I choose, fix the shitty user interface.
I doubt the typical user would think it is a 'feature' as I do.
The fact that it BY DESIGN interfaces with an external server not under my control convinced me never to use the web features.
I knew that before the purchase, I wanted an offline recorder.
Oddly, the typical user DOES consider the remote server a feature. Most people hand a stranger the keys on day #1.
I have an inexpensive 'H.264 tribred' DVR that is slightly more secure. Provided I don't hand the keys to an unknown 3rd party.
Is there anywhere you can buy IP cameras, DVRs, and NVRs that aren't made in China and full of vulnerabilities? Does any company offer secure security camera systems?
If anyone knows of any I'd love to hear about your experience with them. I've looked and even the "high-end" (aka expensive) name-brand devices like Sony and Panasonic have major security flaws like TVT firmware, HTTP only access, passwords stored on the device in plain text, etc.
We had to separate the camera systems at my company onto their own VLAN that can only be accessed from a few computers on our internal network or over our VPN. It is a pain but much better than letting anyone in the world onto our camera system. I want to replace all of them with something better, but it seems like OEM or branded its all the same insecure, never patched, never updated Chinese garbage.
A DVR which is backing the CCTV feed of surveillance cameras. Yup, totally boring.
Why, nobody would want to have access to the take from a bunch of surveillance cameras, right?
Or, this is the full on movie-scenario where the shadowy organization hacks into the video feeds of various places that every complains isn't realistic.
The endless stream of shitty security we keep hearing about has a lot of potential ways to be misused, and apparently very little stopping it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
For the DVR and management interface, Zone Minder is THE open source solution and has been for a long time. It can do all kinds of things like run motion detection on the feeds and when motion is detected it turns on the light and pans your high-quality camera to view the area where the motion was.
It's -more- secure than the stuff made by Happy Fun Camera Ltd, in China, with instructions that read "button the press longly is record of picture motions", which also happens to be the exact same system sold under many brand names. I don't know that it's had a complete security audit, but it's better than Chinese "button the press longly ".
https://zoneminder.com/
As others have mentioned, configuring a separate video vlan (or ssid) which isn't connected to the internet will get you most of the way there for camera security. Your cheap consumer wifi router can do a no-internet ssid by using the parental control feature.
Ubiquiti makes a line of cameras with an NVR, that is probably more trustworthy than the loads of cheap Chinese DVRs heading to our shores.
https://www.ubnt.com/products/...
It's all IP based stuff no Analog/CVI/TVI - so you can't use your existing siamese cable.
Nah, they're pretty good at starting wars or setting the situations up to be volatile enough to where war is the likely outcome.
Weak? Not at all. They've been warring since the dawn of recorded history in that area.
Which leads me to this... Going to war against China is going to be bad. Not just typical-bad 'cause it's war but a badness on a scale not seen in a very long time. Look at the percentage of casualties, displaced persons, and economic negative impacts of the larger wars. Now imagine that with a pissed off China, now modernized and organized under one heading, and see if war versus China still sounds like a good idea.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
If these things are so trivially hacked, how would you know?
Everything from knowing if someone is away from home to actually erasing footage is entirely possible with this exploit. As much as we laugh at movies which show this, why would you assume it can't happen once you realize there's tons of these things with little or no security?
If it can be exploited it probably will. And if cameras have GPS, or you can somehow determine whose PVR you've hacked (which likely isn't that tough since you know the IP you hacked it with and geolocation isn't exactly new) ... then it's likely not that tough to know exactly where you're looking.
The problem with shit security and internet connected things is it can snowball in ways nobody really expected.
Can I cite a specific place where I know this was exploited? Absolutely not. Would anybody know if it had happened? Who knows.
But once a hack becomes plausible and then downright easy, you should probably assume it's being used.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.