Cop a Load of This : 1TB of Police Body Camera Videos Found Around Public Databases

[upnorth]

Content source

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/01/miami_police_bodycams_leaked/

In yet another example of absent security controls, troves of police body camera footage were left open to the world for anyone to siphon off, according to an infosec biz.

Jasun Tate, CEO of Black Alchemy Solutions Group, told The Register on Monday he and his team had identified about a terabyte of officer body cam videos, stored in unprotected internet-facing databases, belonging to the Miami Police Department, and cops in other US cities as well as places aboard. The operators of these databases – Tate suggests there are five service providers involved – work with various police departments. The footage apparently dates from 2018 to present. "Vendors that provide services to police departments are insecure," said Tate, adding that he could not at present identify the specific vendors responsible for leaving the archive freely accessible to the public.

Tate said he came across the files while doing online intelligence work for a client. While searching the internet, he said his firm came across a dark-web hacker forum thread that pointed out the body cam material sitting prone on the internet. Following the forum's links led Tate to police video clips that had been stored insecurely in what he described as a few open MongoDB and mySQL databases. For at least the past few days, the footage was publicly accessible, we're told. Tate reckons the videos will have been copied from the databases by the hacker forum's denizens, and potentially sold on by now. According to Tate, the Miami Police Department was notified of the findings. A spokesperson for Miami PD said the department is still looking into these claims, and won't comment until the review is completed.

 

[Ink]

"5 different cloud service providers. And it's not just MiamiPD- we are talking cities all over the US and Texas heavily. It seems these 5 providers have city contracts all over"
-twitter.com/bitsdigits/status/1145520579136692229

Any info on the 5?

 

[upnorth]

Any info on the 5?

Haven't found any yet.

 

[TairikuOkami]

It should be publicly available anyway, just age restricted, since they are public servants paid by public.

 

[upnorth]

Hmmm those tweets has vanished. I still wonder what cloud service providers it was.

This small article gives a pretty good overview how the contracts works and I want to be very clear, that the company that is mentioned has not been found in any reports but is simply used here as an example. If one search a bit deeper, companies like Amazon etc is also used in this type of Police Body Camera contracts.

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