Security examination of a working city video surveillance system by Kaspersky Lab has revealed that networks designed to help protect people from criminals and terrorists could be misused by a third party exploiting system configuration flaws.
It is no secret that police departments and governments have been monitoring city streets for years, with security cameras proving invaluable in crime investigation and prevention. However, as a result of research conducted by Kaspersky Lab researcher VasiliosHioureas and his fellow researcher Thomas Kinsey from Exigent Systems Inc., these systems could also be used in a harmful way.
Mesh-network based video surveillance systems are, in general, an inexpensive alternative to surveillance systems which require either multiple hotspots throughout a city, or miles of wires. But the security of such networks is heavily dependent on how the whole network is set up. In the case investigated by the researchers, the network of cameras used no encryption at all. After purchasing equipment similar to that used in the city, Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered that sufficient encryption tools are provided, but they were not being used correctly in this case. As a result, clear text data was being sent though the network and made freely available to any observer who joined.The researchers shared their findings with the company that had set up the surveillance network in the city last summer. Since then, the necessary changes have been made to the vulnerable network.
“We undertook this research to highlight that cybersecurity also affects physical security systems, especially critical public systems like video surveillance. When building a smart city, it is extremely important to not only think about the comfort, energy and cost efficiency that the new technologies will bring, but also about the cybersecurity issues that might arise. Although the findings of this research were presented last august we have reasons to believe that its findings are still useful for city authorities that are planning to implement mesh-network based surveillance systems or implemented it already,” – said VasiliosHioureas, Junior Malware Analyst at Kaspersky Lab and a co-author of the research.
