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Home Security Camera Sends Video To Wrong User (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A leading security camera-maker has sent footage from inside a family's home to the wrong person's app. Swann Security has blamed a factory error for the data breach -- which was brought to its attention by the BBC -- and said it was a "one-off" incident. The BBC first learned of the problem on Saturday, when a member of its staff began receiving motion-triggered video clips from an unknown family's kitchen. Until that point, Louisa Lewis had only received footage from her own Swann security camera, which she had been using since December. The development coincided with Ms Lewis's camera running out of battery power and requiring a recharge. A Swann spokeswoman said that "human error" had caused two cameras to be manufactured that shared the same "bank-grade security key -- which secures all communications with its owner." "This occurred after the [family] connected the duplicate camera to their network and ignored the warning prompt that notified: 'Camera is already paired to an account' and left the camera running," she added.
Yeah, right.
A subtle attempt to shift blame to the people that bought this piece of (apparent) junk, ""This occurred after the [family] connected the duplicate camera to their network and ignored the warning prompt that notified: 'Camera is already paired to an account' and left the camera running," she added."
'Camera is already paired to an account'? Could mean it's already been paired to my account and I'm trying to re-pair it. Could be a message indicating success – that you've paired it to the intended account. I'm sure the company will claim this message's meaning is crystal clear and that the people who bought it are partially to blame. I'm not buying that (the dodge or the webcam).
Your gun is currently aimed at your own foot. Are you sure you wish to continue pulling trigger?
Given that the system identified the multiple account issue, and I assume they didn't have a common system in place to allow multiple accounts to work with one camera why was:
a) the camera not depaired from the old account?
b) was the camera allowed to be paired to a new account?
bonus question:
c) if this was by design to allow multiple accounts to access a camera, why is the system setup in such a poor way?
"We are regretful that this was not addressed immediately and adequately by our support team, when discovered. We have addressed this and made some internal changes."
They do however have a previous incident where the exact same thing happened, and in that case they apparently suggested it was because two completely unrelated users used the same user and password (which wasn't true).
Warning messages like this are entirely useless. If someone gets a message 'Camera is already paired to an account', they'll get annoyed and click through it. It doesn't tell them what the problem really is, it doesn't warn them of the consequences, and it's just plain in the way of them finishing the onerous task of registering their devices to get basic functionality.
A better message might have warned them, 'this camera appears to be already registered to another account, possibly because it was resold. If you continue, the camera's previous owner will be able to view this camera in your home'. Even better, it could instruct them to contact tech support to switch ownership of this camera. Better yet, do away with the annoying useless popup message and just deregister the old account's ownership.
They say it's a one-off factory error, but they still should have been able to foresee a camera being bought by one user and later sold to another user. Dealing with that problem would have made the one-off factory error a nonissue. Yes it would have deregistered the old camera, but at least that's something that can be handled through support rather than by sending video to the wrong account.
I think bank-grade means 4 digit passwords.
Another good cloud implementation. The video leaves the local network, goes to some server somewhere where anyone can access it, and then the server sends it to someone else. Of course, you COULD just store the video on the local SDcard in the camera, but then it wouldnt be cloud enabled.
And there's a big part of the problem: the phrase 'Camera is already paired to an account' is just so much word salad to the average user. They will look at it for a moment, briefly wonder what those words might mean, then click through and forget about them.
If you want people to take such warnings seriously, you need to make it much more explicit, as in: "WARNING: The camera is already paired to another user's account. If you continue to use this camera, that user will be able to view the images from it without your knowledge. Please contact Swann technical support at xxx-xxx-xxxx immediately."
The way it should work is for a device to check if it has a key, if it doesn't generates it internally. It should *not* be the case that a device have the private key injected by something externally generating the key. Moving private keys around is bad practice and everything that purports to be secure needs to generate the key on-device rather than accept an external key.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Is that like the "military-grade aluminum" Ford has been advertising as making their trucks out of now?
In that context it probably means material that is mil-spec. Just means it has certain characteristics specified by and conforming to a standard set by the military. Doesn't mean it's necessarily anything special. Milspec parts often meet other standards too though milspec parts are typically more rigorous than many other standards available.
Companies like to use this to do some promotional puffery that makes their product sound more impressive than it might otherwise but what they are saying isn't a lie and it does have some meaning.
Poor Programming and "DevOps" done by the team.
-Poor manufacturing quality control [ duplicate key ]
-Poor programming - duplicate key not detected
-Poor testing - duplicate keys should be rejected
-Poor security - duplicate keys should be revoked
-Poor quality App Testing
-Poor quality hardware/software integration - duplicate keys should be rejected by server, and a new key generated
I build my own security cam with a raspberry pi, a CSI camera, and an infrared detector, it cost less then $100. It mails me snaps of motion, and doesn't need "cloud" access. It also avoids all these problems above.
Bank grade would be a four digit PIN.