Shodan: the search engine for sleeping babies
Shodan, a search engine for the world’s Internet-connected devices, recently launched a section that lets you browse unsecure webcams.
Among the live video feeds are marijuana plantations, back rooms of banks, children, kitchens, living rooms, garages, schools, and cash register cameras in retail stores.
This is according to a report by Ars Technica, quoting security researcher Dan Tentler.
Ars Technica’s search returned images of a sleeping baby in Canada, a kitchen in Spain, a classroom in China, and the entryway to a home.
It stated that the cameras are vulnerable because they use the Real Time Streaming Protocol on port 554 to share video, but have no password authentication in place.
Shodan, which crawls IP addresses on the Internet looking for open ports, can discover the feed and take a snapshot.
Although Shodan bills itself as a search engine of the Internet of Things, others have branded the service as a tool of evil.
Check Point recently recommended that enterprises block Shodan’s crawlers, causing an outcry from members of the information security community.
Shodan founder John Matherly defended the service, saying that the “bad guys” don’t need Shodan to hack into vulnerable systems.
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