Verkada facial recognition camera hack prompts security, ethics concerns

H ackers breached facial recognition camera company Verkada, prompting concerns about its security, privacy, transparency and integrity. C arried out by a hacker collective which aimed to show the pervasiveness of video surveillance and the ease with which systems could be broken into, t he breach involved gaining access to Verkada through a 'Super Admin' account, thereby allowing the hackers to view the cameras of all of its customers. The hackers gained access to live and archived footage of over 150,000 cameras inside the firm's customers facilities across the world , including Tesla factories, hospitals, schools, police stations, as well as those in its own offices. The hackers also acquired a customer list containing over 24,000 unique organisations. The incident prompted investigations by authorities, including the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and US Department of Justice, into Verkada's security practices and marketing claims. ➕ April 2021. Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan announced measures to improve security, including red team / blue team exercises, a bug bounty program , mandatory two-factor authentication use by Verkada support staff, and the sharing of more audit logs with Verkada customers. ➕ August 2024. The FTC announced it would require Verkada to develop and implement a "comprehensive" information security programme. ➕ September 2024. The US Department of Justice announced it would sue Verkada for violating the CAN-SPAM Act . System 🤖 Verkada Face Search 🔗 Documents Verkada. March 9, 2021 Security Incident Report Operator: Verkada; Tesla; Cloudflare; Halifax Health Developer: Verkada Country: USA Sector: Automotive; Govt - police ; Govt - justice; Education; Health; Technology Purpose: Strengthen security; Iden tify individuals Technology: Facial recognition; Machine learning Issue: Privacy; Security; Transparency Legal, regulatory 👩🏼‍⚖️ USA v Verkada Inc Department of Justice. USD 2.95M Penalty and Permanent Injunction Resolves Lawsuit Against Verkada Inc. for Alleged Unlawful Commercial Emails, Data Security Failures and Deceptive Practices Federal Trade Commission. FTC Says Surveillance Camera Company Verkada Has A Lotta Explaining To Do After Lax Data Security Practices and More

Date it happened

2021-01-01

Organisation involved

Verkada; Tesla; Cloudflare; Halifax Health

Product, system or model

Face Search

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.