Backdoor Accounts Found in 80 Sony IP Security Camera Models (pcworld.com)

Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest version. Researchers from SEC Consult have found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony security cameras, mainly used by companies and government agencies given their high price, PCWorld reports. From the article: One set of hard-coded credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult researchers said in an advisory Tuesday. The second hard-coded password is for the root account that could be used to take full control of the camera over Telnet. The researchers established that the password is static based on its cryptographic hash and, while they haven't actually cracked it, they believe it's only a matter of time until someone does. Sony released a patch to the affected camera models last week.

Comments

Re:Of course

[Calydor]

Whether or not you personally use Sony products does not prohibit someone else from taking your ISP offline with a botnet of Sony products.

What camera to buy?

[gQuigs]

I'd like to buy an IP camera, but I haven't been able to find any that are as open/secure/clearly* supported than a raspberry pi with a camera board (and motion software). I'd rather buy a complete solution than put it together myself though.

Requirements:
* Not require the cloud. (Happy if the feature exists as long as it has an off switch)
* Have an OS that has a stated support period (of at least 3 years)
* Sent a video feed to other device on my network.
* 720p+
* Ideal budge Less than $100

Ideally it would have an Open Source OS that I can replace if I want, but does everything I need so I never want to...

Re:What camera to buy?

[tlhIngan]

I'd like to buy an IP camera, but I haven't been able to find any that are as open/secure/clearly* supported than a raspberry pi with a camera board (and motion software). I'd rather buy a complete solution than put it together myself though.

Check out the UBNT UniFi cameras. They can work standalone, but work much better when you connect them to their DVR software (which runs on Java, so works on Linux, Windows, OS X ,etc). Better yet, all you use to view and configure it is... a web browser.

So the camera is the camera, and you can access its IP directly, but you can have your Pi run the DVR software and then extends it into a much more powerful surveillance system.

Hard coded creds AND telnet as a service? Plz

[adosch]

So hard-coded credentials AND MF telnet? Seriously ladies and gentlemen, WTF is slapping the OS stack on these IoT devices? Was someone just that lazy with their firmware we couldn't take that out of busybox/toybox or heaven forbid strip that out of the development pipeline when you're cutting out the production firmware for mass use? I realize it's handy when you're developing it, but this is just lunacy anymore. I thought we all went over this as hardened, grey sys-admins now that telnet had died a long time ago in the 90's...

I don't even think I want to get started about hard-coded credentials, and I'm not going to. All I can say now is: Thanks for making it unbelievably EASY for anyone putting yet another bot network to compromise more low hanging fruit. Even if it's not used in that, I'm sure all the Shodan fans will love it.

I'm just whine-ranting now, but is anyone has F blown away as me that shit like this STILL continues to happen?

Not just Sony

[product_bucket]

Lots of the big name security brands are running the same basic NetSurveillance WEB firmware underneath their skinned interface. I'm thinking particularly of the brand that makes flight data recorders... and cordless doorbells. I wonder if people would pay serious money for a IPTV network if they knew it's just a re-badged Mirai host.

How do I know? They hit me 24/7, I'll be worried about the connectivity of the internet if they ever stop.

The company that rootkitted Windows from audio CDs

[mr_mischief]

So the company that put Windows rootkits on Redbook audio CDs puts backdoors in other products? Stunning!

The company that sold the PSP 1000 to early adopters at $250+ per unit based on all the things it would be able to do with expansions, then released expansions that only worked with later models doesn't take their customers' needs seriously? Shocking!

The company that advertised Linux on the PlayStation 3 then made it impossible to use Linux if you installed most of the newer PS/3 games stomps on their promises? Inconceivable!

Or... oh, wait... no, that's not it. The surprising part is that anybody trusts these shady jerks at all.

Not cracked

[plover]

So they have an MD5 hash, but don't know what value hashes to it. They have no idea if it's a 10 character '1234567890' password or a 64 character string of random bytes. They also know that it's not a string that Google has already found and cached. The only clue they have to go on is the existing backdoor they found that turns telnet on, which uses 11 random ASCII characters as the secret. But 11 characters are almost out of reach for brute force password testing. If the person who put the backdoor in applied only the same amount of thought to the secret password, that would still be a monster to attack with brute force.

So I disagree that it's a matter of time. I think it's a matter of defeating it in another way, such as having Wireshark running when someone who actually knows the password types it in; or uncovering a wikileaked document that contains the secret backdoor password.

Re:Lorex security cameras just as bad max password

[guruevi]

Most of those platforms run on systems with limited memory. 200 bytes for 5 usernames and their passwords is 'a lot' of storage if you only have 128kbytes of it.