LAS VEGAS — The wireless networks that cities use to link surveillance cameras are vulnerable to hacking, according to two security researchers who spoke at the Defcon hacker conference here.
Firetide mesh network camera
Police rely on these surveillance cameras and public loudspeakers to keep watch on areas of cities where they can’t always send patrols. But the mesh network cameras that the security researchers investigated had little or no security, and they found that virtually anyone could access them, including hackers pulling pranks or criminals who can inject them with fake videos. It is one more example of how vulnerable the “Internet of things” is to hacking.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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