Iran is trying to hack surveillance cameras in Israel to make it easier to target targets in the week-long conflict, Bloomberg reported Friday. The same tactic has been used earlier by Russia and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
“We know that in the last two or three days, the Iranians have been trying to connect to the cameras to figure out where the missiles hit them and to increase the precision of the attacks,” Israeli cybersecurity specialist Refael Franco told the agency. He recommended that residents turn off home surveillance cameras or change their passwords.
Hamas hacked into private security cameras before the invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, said Gaby Portnoy, until recently the head of Israel's national cybersecurity organization, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Thousands of cameras have been hacked over the years and used to gather intelligence,” he emphasized.
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Russia used a similar tactic, according to US intelligence, which, before its aggression against Ukraine, “exploited access to private cameras in key locations such as border crossings, military installations and railway stations.”
The government in Kiev banned surveillance cameras in 2022, saying Russia was using them to plan airstrikes. The following year, it called on the owners of the cameras to stop broadcasting online. “Russia is exploiting the vulnerability of modern cameras (to hacking – PAP) to carry out missile attacks on Ukraine and is adjusting them in real time,” the authorities reported at the time.
In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission banned Chinese spying equipment in 2022 , citing national security concerns.
Most consumers, when deciding to purchase a monitoring system, are guided by price, not the level of security, said Peleg Wasserman, who is responsible for security at the energy company.
“Consumers need to remember that they are not the only ones who may have access to this camera,” Wasserman said.
He says customers can unknowingly film a sensitive object or a cityscape, “very useful for targeting.” In addition, private surveillance cameras often have a default password, and some systems automatically upload recorded footage to the Internet.
For countries at war, a data leak could prove to be an Achilles heel , Bloomberg emphasized. In 2022, the Israeli cyber agency warned that hackers could have gained access to tens of thousands of surveillance cameras. After the Hamas attack, it turned out that private security systems belonging to kibbutzim located near the border with the Gaza Strip had been hacked.
Most people are unaware of the potential dual use of CCTV cameras and the dangers they pose. “You want to protect yourself, but you're putting yourself at risk,” Franco said. (PAP)
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