26.35m cameras worldwide vulnerable to attack by hackers

A total of 26.35 million cameras in around 228 countries and regions could be accessed via public networks as of November, while a lack of security measures on the ubiquitous equipment may bring severe public security risks if not managed properly, said a report.

Vietnam has 2 million cameras accessible by public network, the largest number followed by the US with 1.83 million and China with 1.65 million such cameras, said the report titled “Camera Security Report of 2018”.

The report was released by Beijing-based Baimaohui security research institute on Thursday.

The top three cities that have the largest number of cameras exposed to public networks are Mexico City (75,000), Dalian in Northeast China’s Liaoning Province (73,000) and New York (67,000), it said.

The data was gathered by FOFA, a cyberspace search engine developed by Baimaohui after tracking 1,002 types of cameras on the market.

As cameras are widely used on cellphones, computers, smart equipment and in public places such as banks and roads, the equipment poses huge security threats if attacked or controlled by hackers, cyber security analysts warned.

For instance, terrorists could replace the surveillance footage while breaking into a building and they could easily choose the most populated region for attacks by analyzing the traffic via cameras, Wu Ming, director of Baimaohui, told the Global Times.

Compared with PCs, cameras are seldomly equipped with antivirus and firewall software and are more easily hacked, said Wu.

From January to November of 2018, 221 vulnerabilities of cameras have been reported around the world, including information leaks and remote code execution, said the Baimaohui report. The number was 186 in 2017, according to the report.