Ring cam credentials leaked on the web; now’s a good time to change your password

Amazon’s Ring business can’t seem to catch a break from scandals. A security researcher has found log-in credentials for 3,672 Ring camera owners on a text storage site, Buzzfeed reported. Anyone can use the leaked data to snoop on those people’s private lives up to 60 days back.

Buzzfeed doesn’t name the researcher but was able to verify his findings. The leaked data contained log-in emails, passwords, time zones, and the names people give to their Ring cameras, like “bedroom” or “front door.” The data format is typical of a breach, but Ring denied it suffered an internal hack. Instead, it suggested those credentials had been compromised in another company’s hack, and that hackers used credential stuffing to access cams authenticated with those same credentials.

“Ring has not had a data breach,” a Ring spokesperson told Buzzfeed. “Our security team has investigated these incidents and we have no evidence of an unauthorized intrusion or compromise of Ring’s systems or network. It is not uncommon for bad actors to harvest data from other company’s data breaches and create lists like this so that other bad actors can attempt to gain access to other services.”

The researcher notified Ring of the leak at least a week ago. After being told off by the representative, he decided to share his findings on a security-centric subreddit, according to the report. That caught Ring’s attention. A staffer from Ring’s security division reportedly messaged the researcher saying, “the leak represented compromised data that the company previously did not know about,” according to Buzzfeed.

The company only started notifying affected customers on December 18. Screenshots published by the news outlet show the notice in full, including Ring’s call to customers to use two-factor authentication as an added layer of security to their accounts. Indeed, none of the affected camera owners had 2FA enabled, the researcher found.

However, Ring also doesn’t tell cam owners who is currently accessing the feed, or from where – a serious lapse on behalf of a security company.

If you own a Ring security cam, even if you are not one of the 3,000+ affected customers, now’s probably a good time to create a new password — one unique to your device. Since Ring seems to not know how the leak occurred, it may very well happen again. Use a minimum of eight characters, upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters (i.e. *&%#). Don’t forget to enable 2FA as well. Even if your credentials somehow get compromised, a hacker would still need the one-time security code sent to your phone to access your account.

In November, Bitfefender published research on a vulnerability in the Ring Video Doorbell Pro that would allow an attacker physically near the device to intercept the owner’s Wi-Fi network credentials and possibly mount a larger attack against the household network. That vulnerability is now patched.

Amazon’s Ring business has come under heavy fire in recent months, including from civil rights activists and the United States Congress for allowing police to access video feeds without a warrant.

A Gizmodo investigation recently showed how a motivated hacker could gather private location information about Ring doorbell users that would otherwise not be available to the public.

Ring most recently made headline after a hacker broke into a family’s camera to harass a young child. In this incident, the owners had also forgotten to enable 2FA, despite Ring recommending that customers do so.