IP camera security

Your review of IP cameras ( see issue 270, p92) featured some very capable and impressive devices. However, in view of the recent DDoS attacks, which were unprecedented in their

size and launched from compromised IP cameras, I was surprised to find no mention of security in the article. In a few minutes at shodan.io, I identified 187 instances of the reviewed D-Link device and over 300,000 Hikvision instances of some sort on the internet.

No doubt at least some of these will be protected using default passwords, which could be found simply by downloading the user manuals.

Resolution, night vision, ease of setup, codecs and PoE along with many other features are important for anyone venturing into this field, but an introduction to in-built security features, how to use them effectively and the consequences of not doing so was surely something of an omission. I keep being reminded of the wit who remarked that the “S” in “IoT” stands for secure. Philip Le Riche