An Investigation of Vulnerabilities in Smart Connected Cameras

The Internet of Things is enabling innovative services promising added convenience and value in various domains such as the smart home. Increasingly, households, office environments and cities, are being fitted with smart camera systems aimed to enhance the security of citizens. At the same time, several systems being deployed suffer from weak security implementations. Recognizing this, and to understand the extent of this situation, in this study we perform a global vulnerability assessment using the Shodan search engine and the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database. This is done to detect smart connected cameras exposed on the Internet alongside their sensitive, potentially private, data being broadcasted. Furthermore, we discuss whether the discovered data can be used to compromise the safety and privacy of individuals, and identify some mitigations that can be adopted. The results indicate that a significant number of smart cameras are indeed prone to diverse security and privacy vulnerabilities.