CCTV Outside Homes Used to Find Missile Targets? ... "AI Has Turned Them into 'Wartime Scouts'"

WSJ: "Civilian Cameras Used in Actual Operations"
Ukraine Blocks 40,000 At-Risk Cameras
Israel: 250 Cameras Hacked by Iran

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and webcams installed in residential neighborhoods, shops, and farms are being hacked and used as reconnaissance equipment on battlefields, according to reports.

CCTV image for illustrative purposes. Pixabay

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on October 11 local time, citing intelligence agencies, cybersecurity experts, military officials, and hackers, that "poorly secured civilian cameras are being used in actual operations in the Russia-Ukraine war and conflicts in the Middle East." The WSJ said that "hacked cameras are taking over some of the work of aerial reconnaissance and on-the-ground intelligence agents, such as locating targets and assessing the results of strikes," adding that "using cameras installed near a target can provide a constant stream of intelligence while reducing the risks compared with entering the area in person."

"AI has changed everything": Hacked cameras intensify the intelligence war

The method is simple. Intelligence agencies and hackers first identify internet-connected cameras with weak security settings. They then reportedly attempt to access them by trying large numbers of possible passwords, among other methods. The footage they obtain is analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI). AI automatically finds images of troop movements or specific equipment in the vast amount of footage that people cannot review frame by frame. The leader of Team Onefist, an international hacker group supporting the Ukrainian military, said, "AI has changed everything."

In late 2022, Team Onefist hacked cameras in Crimea, Ukraine, which Russia had occupied, and tracked the movements of Russian military helicopters. The hackers followed their routes to identify the locations of Russian air bases and passed the information to the Ukrainian military. Russian hackers, too, reportedly broke into webcams in residential neighborhoods in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2024 in an attempt to gather information related to potential targets for missile attacks. Since the start of the war, Ukrainian authorities have identified about 40,000 cameras deemed to pose security risks and either tightened their security or blocked access to them.

A photo showing the damage caused by the war in Ukraine, included to help readers understand the article. Reuters-Yonhap News

According to Israeli authorities, Iran-linked hacking groups breached about 250 major security cameras this year. Targets included license plate recognition cameras and cameras near strategic locations, military gathering points, and military bases along the Lebanese border. Early this year, the owner of a chicken farm in Israel noticed that the language settings on a webcam app on his smartphone had suddenly changed to Arabic. An investigation by the authorities found that hackers had breached the Chinese-made camera and monitored the movements of Israeli security forces in a nearby border area.

Israel, for its part, reportedly hacked Iranian traffic cameras to obtain information related to the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Associated Press reported in March that Israel had repeatedly hacked Tehran's traffic cameras since 2021. Mahmoud Nabavian, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee, once said, "All the cameras at intersections are in Israel's hands."

"Many internet-connected cameras lack adequate security features"

The threat is not limited to war zones. Experts said that "many internet-connected cameras have inadequate built-in security features, and their software is not properly updated or inspected." Cameras installed separately by facilities management departments at companies or government agencies, without going through their IT departments, can easily fall outside security management systems. There have also been reports of ransomware groups using such cameras as backdoors into internal networks. Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts data and demands payment in exchange for restoring access.

Meanwhile, last year, footage was leaked after 120,000 IP cameras installed in homes and other locations in South Korea were hacked. However, only two home camera products have received IoT security certification from the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), and the certification for one of them has expired.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.