Typically when someone buys an IP camera it’s so they can access it from the outside (the internet) to their local network and view what’s going on. This is where you can run into problems even if you do provide a strong password on certain cameras by providing access to them from the outside world you are more than likely forwarding a port through your firewall to the camera you’d like to view. Now anyone that took a few seconds to sniff for open ports on your IP will forwarded to that camera where they have a few options.
1. More than likely your camera is transmitting through an unencrypted method, this means without hacking the camera or providing a password that the hacker could just suck up the unencrypted data and at the least view anything your camera is transmitting.
2. Since they have access to the camera they can now use a brute force attack which is basically trying a bunch of passwords one at a time until the right one is discovered, typically involves some kind of dictionary database they use so by using simple passwords that are words in a dictionary you are more vulnerable.
3. The more effective method would be to sniff the traffic like they do in the first one and while watching your footage without control of the camera wait until someone logs in, which again is through unencrypted methods meaning they can discover your password simply by listening to your traffic.
It gets more complicated as well, once they have complete access to your camera they can change the firmware on it and basically run software to help infiltrate the rest of your network, compromising your security entirely. Then begins the email, farming, man in the middle attacks or more….
What you need to do is add a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to your network on the frontlines, this will allow you to securely connect to your network through encryption. Like anything that connects to the internet though, proper settings matter and nothing guarantees 100{463c70c279fb908728b910a090d44fbe4ae7aabcd875de9c1a518a8c8e2be8bd} security…