Big ‘Russian’ Brother
is watching you:
Website posts thousands of hacked live footage
Website posts thousands of hacked live footage
Like a fictional
character come to life, a Russian website has turned one of the world’s worst
nightmares into a reality. Hackers now seem to have found a way to pry into our
private lives by taking hacking into wireless camera accounts around the world.
As reported by
BBC, data watchdogs have pointed out that some hackers have collected
recorded videos from systems that use default passwords or no passwords at all.
The hacked videos have been posted on a Russian website, which BBC has chosen
not to name.
BBC reports that the
website has streams from more than 250 countries and other territories. It
further states that it has listings for 4,591 cameras in the US, 2,059 in
France and 1,576 in the Netherlands. Some footage has also been identified to
come from developing countries such as Nicaragua, Pakistan, Kenya, Paraguay and
Zimbabwe.
Some of the leaked
videos include a child in its bedroom, an elderly woman sitting in a living
room and some office and gym videos. As wireless cameras let you watch videos
online, it makes it easy for snoopers to watch them too if the passwords are
easy to guess. So if you own a webcam, baby monitor or security camera, you can
save yourself from being constantly watched by just changing the password of
the devices.
The website lists
videos along with the brand of the camera and the country it’s from. According
to BBC, China-based Foscam was the most commonly listed brand, followed by
Linksys and Panasonic.
UK Information
Commissioner Christopher Graham warned that “there are people out there who are
snooping”. He told BBC Breakfast: “It’s got more than 500 UK webcams where
there is a facility for remote access to check what’s going on in the shop,
what’s going on at home, how’s the baby.”