(San Francisco) Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras from the startup Verkada, installed in Tesla factories, hospitals, prisons, schools and other organizations, have been hacked by hackers who posted stolen footage on Twitter.
“Have you ever wondered what the interior of a Tesla warehouse is?” An account called “Tele Croim” from the “APT-69420 Arson Cats” group tweeted Tuesday, along with the alleged factory photo and the hashtag #OperationPanopticon.
“What if we put an end to surveillance capitalism in two days?” The same user says between photos and videos of various companies and organizations, of an employee dancing in a utility room at Bank of Utah to office chairs stacked in Equinox (a physical training company).
A Verkada spokesperson said in response to Agence France-Presse’s request: “We have disabled all internal official accounts to prevent unauthorized access.”
He added, “Our internal security team and our external partner are investigating the extent and extent of this problem, and we have informed the police,” adding that the company’s clients have been notified and that there is a dedicated communication channel to answer their questions. .
The hacker’s account has also posted screenshots to prove it has gained access to the computer monitoring systems used by automaker Tesla and Cloudflare, which is a service provider for several websites.
They say “that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
“There is some irony in exposing the state’s surveillance and suddenly putting all eyes on you,” they still laugh.
US media reported that the account belonged to Telly Cottman, an engineer with the hacker group.
Whatever their motives, the attack risks permanent damage to Vercada’s image.
Rick Holland, director of security at Digital Shadows, a cybersecurity firm, responded that the company “presents itself as a” safer and easier to measure “alternative to internal video recording networks.
But this snooping is “an example of the risks associated with outsourcing this type of service to cloud service providers”.
He notes that piracy will undoubtedly allow personal data to be stolen, and can follow legal procedures.
Other computer security experts have indicated that hackers may have gained access to Verkada’s infrastructure through the “super admin” account, through phishing.