Smart camera glitch exposes people’s homes to strangers
A glitch with Wyze smart cameras has exposed thousands of people’s homes to strangers, the company has revealed.
The internet-connected cameras of around 13,000 customers became partially accessible to other users last Friday following a major outage that knocked the Wyze app offline for several hours.
When service resumed, Wyze users spotted thumbnails from cameras that did not belong to them. More than 1,500 of the 13,000 users that received the thumbnails tapped on them, which either enlarged the image or played a video captured by another user’s camera.
Some users shared their experiences on a Wyze Reddit forum.
“I was watched by someone,” one post stated. “I’m shocked. I’m a 23-year-old girl and I was getting ready for work during the outage... I’m so disgusted and upset. I’ve already deleted my account, but I’m feeling so violated.”
Wyze users were informed of the issues via a series of emails, with the US-based company placing part of the blame on its web hosting provider Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“The outage originated from our partner AWS and took down Wyze devices for several hours early Friday morning,” the email stated.
“If you tried to view live cameras or Events during that time, you likely weren’t able to. We’re very sorry for the frustration and confusion this caused.”
Wyze added that the mix up of camera feeds once the outage was over resulted from a “third-party caching client library” that had recently been integrated.
“The client library received unprecedented load conditions caused by devices coming back online all at once,” the email stated.
“As a result of increased demand, it mixed up device ID and user ID mapping and connected some data to incorrect accounts.”
Wyze said that a “new layer of verification” has been added to prevent the issue happening again.
It is not the first time smart cameras have been compromised, with security researchers revealing numerous incidents involving various companies in recent years.
In 2020, owners of smart cameras linked to Google accounts reported seeing images from inside other people’s homes, including pictures of children playing with toys and a baby sleeping in a crib.
