Hundreds of Thousands of Vulnerable IP Cameras Easy Target for Botnet, Researcher Says by Chris Brook.
From the post:
A researcher claims that hundreds of thousands of shoddily made IP cameras suffer from vulnerabilities that could make them an easy target for attackers looking to spy, brute force them, or steal their credentials.
Researcher Pierre Kim disclosed the vulnerabilities Wednesday and gave a comprehensive breakdown of the affected models in an advisory on his GitHub page.
…
A gifted security researcher who has discovered a number of backdoors in routers, estimates there are at least 18,000 vulnerable cameras in the United States alone. That figure may be as high as 200,000 worldwide.
For all of the pissing and moaning in Chris’ post, I don’t see the problem.
Governments, corporations, web hosts either have us under surveillance or their equipment is down for repairs.
Equipment that isn’t under their direct control, such as “shoddily made IP cameras,” provide an opportunity for citizens to return the surveillance favor.
To perform surveillance those who accept surveillance of the “masses” but find surveillance of their activities oddly objectionable.
Think of it this way:
The US government has to keep track of approximately 324 million people, give or take. With all the sources of information on every person, that’s truly a big data problem.
Turn that problem around and consider that Congress has only 535 members.
That’s more of a laptop sized data problem, albeit that they are clever about covering their tracks. Or think they are at any rate.
No, the less security that exists in general the more danger there is for highly visible individuals.
Think about who is more vulnerable before you complain about a lack of security.
The security the government is trying to protect isn’t for you. I promise. (The hoarding of cyber exploits by the CIA is only one such example.)