Thieves Hacking Security Cameras? 181
The FBI is investigating fifteen store robberies in eleven states, committed via phone and internet. The perpetrators hack the store's security system so they can observe their victims. They then make customers take their clothes off and get the store to wire money. From the article, "A telephone caller making a bomb threat to a Hutchinson, Kan., grocery store kept more than 100 people hostage, demanding they disrobe and that the store wire money to his bank account. ... officials were investigating whether the caller was out of state and may have hacked into the store's security system. "If they can access the Internet, they can get to anything," Hutchinson Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt said. "Anyone in the whole world could have access, if that's what really happened.""
Duh (Score:1, Informative)
Re:"wire money to his bank account"? (Score:5, Informative)
Why CCTV is on the internet (Score:5, Informative)
Rather than build a dedicated hardwired telecom network, companies are using the internet to connect everything together (security systems, financial systems, medical records, industrial control, etc.) As we can see from this example, they think they've created their own virtual network (of some degree of privacy), but in practice, the system is extremely vulnerable. I'd bet that more than a few internet-connected security cameras run with factory-default passwords.
Re:Dumber than dumb (Score:5, Informative)
Re:CCTV (Score:4, Informative)
Read further in TFA:
Initially, the caller led employees to believe he was observing them.
"After a while, it sounded like he was just taking a shot in the dark at what they might be doing, or what they looked like or how they were reacting to his call," Prescott police Lt. Ken Morley said.
In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
And have fun...
Re:Duh (Score:5, Informative)
ALL of this stuff goes right back to raging incompetence. It's incredible how little these stores pay for IT, I had to teach the IT specialists for Walmart how to do basic networking when we were helping a client set up their network for their restaurant inside a new walmart store. The Walmart head of networking, or so he claimed to be, told me it was impossible to tunnel IP traffic safely through a network, no. he did not understand what a VPN was and then told me that VPN is not allowed as it's insecure and unencrypted!.... and then I had to hold their hands and show them how easy is really is to patch a phone line to a cat 5 jack in the phone room. Their network engineer told me flat out that DSL will not work over cat-5e cable. "The phone company uses Cat6 to your house!" is what he said. I was amazed at how undereducated these IT and networking people were.
With that kind of incompetence due to very low pay, it does not surprise me that security cameras are put on the net directly.
Re:Dumber than dumb (Score:3, Informative)
If only we could get Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt to say that as well
Re:CCTV (Score:2, Informative)
Re:CCTV (Score:4, Informative)
see here [kansas.com]
Oh and no bombs have ever been found, there are a lot of embarrassed people out there who have really overreacted to these 'menacing & scary' phone calls.
Re:Dumber than dumb (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5095674