Hackers breach Flock cameras to reveal how the company tracks cars and people: Report | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #hacker

The Flock cameras, once considered to be the perfect solution for tracking and inspecting vehicles across the US road networks, have now gained the reputation of being a flawed system.  The Constabulary’s failure to contain data breaches and unofficial use in the past has led people across the country to criticize the new infrastructure. These AI-integrated cameras have been ripped down in several areas of the United States, and recently a group took over a camera and bypassed its security guardrails to reveal how these cameras are able to track movements.

The hackers have been able to copy the cameras’ storage and recover an encryption key that was stored on the device; this led to thousands of videos and vehicle detections that the cameras are able to decipher. The hackers shared their findings with 404 Media. Some of the most sensitive areas and storage that helped the automatic license plate reader remained inaccessible.

The hacker revealed that the camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and has the ability to produce more than a million images of a vehicle passing by.

What the hackers found out

404 Media analyzed the cameras and found out that the device’s processor is similar to the ones found on midrange smartphones. They further added that these cameras run about 20 built-in apps that handle everything from detecting motion and tracking pictures to classifying objects, uploading data, and receiving remote updates.

To ensure that it’s able to capture the license plates in different lighting conditions, it manipulates the exposure, then scans images, selects clips and useful frames, and sends the data over to the Flock cellular network. The hackers further detail how these cameras were able to recognize people around. The models working on the camera were recovered from the device and used to analyze the images and videos captured by the camera itself. The models were able to recognize people in 11 of the clips, all of them mostly riding motorcycles, and it further highlighted how broadly the camera’s plate detector could interpret what it saw.

Hackers’ findings have reaffirmed Flock’s statements that these cameras do not perform any facial recognition beyond the capabilities in the default Android operating system.

Flock cameras struggling with storage

The camera logs also show that these cameras are struggling with storage; the logs that record its activities recorded more than 27,000 “no space left on device” messages. Beyond that, at about every two minutes, the code kept checking whether the camera was still running and logged the message “who’s a good boy?”

And upon being rebooted, the camera recorded the message saying “Adios Amigos.”

While the use of the camera has been shrouded in controversy, President Donald Trump has been an ardent supporter of the new surveillance system. Moreover, Noel Picardo, a former Pawtucket, Rhode Island, police officer who became a critic of Flock, said that while the activists have a valid point, sabotaging these devices, as done by the hackers, could only lead to strengthen the case of the government to use these cameras.