Urgent Warning To Those With Home Camera Systems As ‘Disturbing’ Website Could Be Watching You While You Sleep

People are being warned to urgently check their camera systems over concerns of a ‘disturbing’ website that allows users to spy on homes and businesses.

The website Insecam allows anyone to access live video feeds from devices such as baby monitors, web cams and CCTV from inside people’s homes.

It shows everything from traffic and parks all the way into people’s bedrooms, driveways and businesses – and anyone on the internet can access it.

The site features more than 2,000 camera feeds from around the world, including popular brands such as Panasonic, Sony, Canon and Linksys, with 36 of those coming from the UK alone.

Insecam ascertains that none of the cameras have been ‘hacked’, rather they just ‘do not have any password protection’.

The owner of the site, which is based in Russia, has even claimed he is doing people a service by making them aware of how easy it is to access their cameras.

But there have been concerns raised over the ethics of exploiting such a loop hole, as many people may be unaware their cameras are open to the public.

One expert told MailOnline the site operates in a legal ‘grey area’ and warned people they may be unassumingly allowing strangers to peer into their home.

Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET, was surprised the site was still operating, having first hit headlines in 2014.

Mr Moore told MailOnline: ‘I thought this issue had gone away. I am surprised people are still using these devices that come with more lax security.

‘It’s shocking because anyone from around the world can be looking at these cameras.’

Insecam describes itself as ‘the world (sic) biggest directory of online surveillance security cameras.’ The website even provides the latitude and longitude coordinates for the addresses.

But despite the obvious invasion of privacy, Insecam claims only people who haven’t changed the password to their security camera will have their footage streamed on their site.

‘Only filtered cameras are available now. This way none of the cameras on Insecam invade anybody’s private life’, the website says.

The owner of the Insecam, whose name is unknown, has doubled down on its validity and claims the site does a ‘great job’ of showing ‘the problem to neglectful users’.

They told the Huffington Post in 2014: ‘I do not [have regrets]. I did [a] great job to show the problem to neglectful users. Without this example users do not care about the password.

‘Do you think their privacy is not invaded without my site? There are tons of video records and images on anonymous image boards. I am not even sure that all of them are not an exhibitionists.’

Mr Moore said there are lots of public cameras across the UK used by people for a variety of reasons, whether that be checking the weather down by the beach or keeping tabs on an airport runway.

But preventing sites such as Insecam from operation is a legal ‘grey area’ as the cameras have not technically been hacked, he added.

Mr Moore explained that many old home camera systems come with default passwords and usernames that are exactly the same for everyone of its devices.

This means that if someone knows the password for one device then they can log into the feeds of any other device from the same company.

‘Some companies have the same usernames and passwords for all their devices and don’t encourage people to change them.

‘And in that case they can be exploited by anyone who knows the passwords and usernames which can sometimes be found just by googling them.’

Mr Moore said the best way to prevent your camera from appearing on the site is to make sure to buy it from a trusted brand.

He said: ‘Unbranded items, they tend to have less security. They may be cheaper but they are cheaper for a reason. They just don’t come with that extra security in mind.

Mr Moore added that people should only buy cameras to monitor their home if absolutely necessary and stressed the importance of changing the devices’s factory setting soon as you set it up.

‘I don’t like the idea of cameras in your home because we can never be sure they are unhackable,’ Mr Moore said.

‘So the question is do you absolutely need it and if you do make sure it is the highest quality. If people have any cameras in the house they need to be certain that they have set up their own passwords.’

Daily Mail UK