Criminals Offer Access to Private Security Cameras in Bedrooms and Toilets, Researcher Finds

According to information published by a security researcher, an unknown group currently sells access to a wide range of live feeds from various security cameras in Vietnam.

While Bitdefender often found that security cameras do not protect consumers as much as they should, finding live feeds online is a different problem altogether. Likely, the availability of the feeds don't have anything to do with any specific vulnerability but more with people using default or very common credentials.

One reason for this suspicion is the wide array of places these cameras are in. The live feeds show bedrooms, changing rooms in clothing stores, toilets and massage parlors. Security researcher Minh Hung was the one who discovered the Telegram channel selling access to all of these feeds.

The Telegram's channel description is very straightforward, according to a Vnexpress report.

"A group specialized in hacking into private cameras of families and shops in Vietnam. All footage is dark corners and hot scenes from families."

The criminals offer three packages with various degrees of access. The first tier, at VND150,000 ($6.18), only lets users access random, low-quality feeds, but the second tier, at VND500,000 ($20.60), lets users access high-quality videos.

The third VIP tier is VND800,000 ($32.96) gives people access to footage from previous years, from bedrooms, and live footage from various sources. The group admins pride themselves on the type of data they provide.

"Our software constantly scans localities across the country. Most of the cameras are located in the corners of bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing rooms, toilets, hotels, clothing shops, massage parlors," the criminals says.

Security cameras often capture important information, not to mention private. Users should really take into consideration where they install them, and that includes bedrooms. Also, it's a good idea to choose good passwords, change the default credentials, keep devices up to date with the latest firmware, and enable 2FA as soon as possible.