Report: Amazon’s Ring videos from inside customers’ homes viewed in cybercrime hotbed

Firm’s employees reportedly shared private recordings

Owners of Amazon’s Ring home-security systems can see inside and outside their homes remotely — but so can a bunch of tech workers in a location that’s a hotbed of cybercrime, new reports suggest.

E-commerce giant Amazon bought Ring for $853 million last year, and the New York Times’ popular Wirecutter website soon deemed Ring’s video-equipped doorbell a worthy addition to home security.

But in addition to the doorbells, and a variety of outdoor cameras and sensors, Ring also sells indoor cameras that integrate with its homesecurity system, and Wirecutter has now added a warning to its review: “A recent story in The Intercept alleges that Ring may have allowed its employees inappropriate and potentially unrestricted access to its customers’ video streams or recordings.”

The Intercept, a tech-focused news site, reported that despite Ring’s mission to keep homes and their occupants secure, “the company’s treatment of customer video feeds has been anything but.”

The company gave its Ukraine-based R&D team “virtually unfettered access” to “every video created by every Ring camera around the world,” according to The Intercept.

“The Ukraine team was also provided with a corresponding database that linked each specific video file to corresponding specific Employees at Amazon Ring apparently have been given unrestricted access of all recordings by the device.