Hackers Gained Access to 150,000 IP Cameras

It’s extremely unfortunate to see yet another broad IoT security breach, but this breach is more dangerous that those we have seen recently. Verkada, a Silicon Valley startup, suffered a massive IoT cyber-attack. The hackers were “able to obtain “root” access on the cameras, meaning they could use the cameras to execute their own code on the device.  This enabled them to use the IoT device as a launching point for attacks laterally across the entire enterprise network. This exposed the rest of the enterprise network, devices, applications and cloud services to potential data and intellectual property theft.

With this super user access to the security cameras, the hackers were able to stream live feeds of every Verkada customer’s camera network. What’s scary is that Verkada’s large customer list includes a lot of enterprises like Tesla, public jails, hospitals, and schools.
In addition to the live video feeds, the hackers were able to access all the archived videos which means the entire video library for these organizations was at risk.  A simple search on the “Verkada breach” will quickly demonstrate how massive this cyber-attack is, returning results of videos that have been made public through this breach.

Without a quick fix, many of these organizations had to shut down their network of security cameras to prevent unauthorized access.  This was costly, directly impacted their operations, and took their cameras offline increasing the security risk of those facilities.   Although an investigation has been kicked off, it doesn’t erase the fact that this attack actually occurred and has raised awareness regarding the importance of IoT security.

How did the IoT Cameras Get Breached?

I think we can all agree that IoT devices bring productivity benefits to the workplace and have become necessary. Unfortunately, IoT devices (like IP cameras, smart TVs, etc.) present a huge attack surface for cybercriminals to easily gain access to your network as they are highly vulnerable and easy to hack into.  The security risk is real as 67% of enterprises and 82% of healthcare organizations have experienced IoT security incidents. IoT device are vulnerable to attack because they:

• Having little to no built-in security
• Run on Simple or Legacy OS
• Use weak, easy-to-guess passwords
• Are extremely difficult to patch

IoT devices have unique characteristics depending on the type of device – like the device functionality, unique operating systems, etc. They also often use proprietary protocols which are often difficult to understand making it hard for IT and network managers to set policies for these devices. What’s even worse is that many of these devices are unmanaged – meaning that although these devices are connected to any given network, it is extremely difficult to control them, view them, and create policies for these devices without a proper solution.

So we’re left with the question…what can we do now to protect ourselves and our networks?

What Can You Do To Protect Your Organization?

There are a couple of things we suggest doing immediately:

1. Partner with an IoT solution provider that can help you discover every IoT device connected to your network, and assess each device’s security risk
2. Invest in IoT solutions that integrate IoT security into a broader solution that also protects your datacenter, network, mobile, endpoint and cloud.

What you are looking for is a solution that can prevent unauthorized access and malicious intent from ever reaching the IoT device. And in addition, prevent infected devices from compromising other devices in the network. To put it simply, you want a solution that excels in IoT discovery and risk analysis, zero-trust segmentation capabilities, proven threat prevention, as well as quick detection and response.

Getting started is as simple as signing up for an IoT Security Checkup which we have designed specifically for events like this.