sensors

Review
The Security of IP-Based Video Surveillance Systems
Naor Kalbo 1,† , Yisroel Mirsky 1,2, *,† , Asaf Shabtai 1 and Yuval Elovici 1
1 Software and Information Systems Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,
Beer Sheva 8410501, Israel; [email protected] (N.K.); [email protected] (A.S.); [email protected] (Y.E.)
2 College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
* Correspondence: [email protected]
† These authors contributed equally to this work.




Received: 18 June 2020; Accepted: 20 August 2020; Published: 26 August 2020


Abstract: Over the last decade, video surveillance systems have become a part of the Internet
of Things (IoT). These IP-based surveillance systems now protect industrial facilities, railways,
gas stations, and even one’s own home. Unfortunately, like other IoT systems, there are inherent
security risks which can lead to significant violations of a user’s privacy. In this review, we explore
the attack surface of modern surveillance systems and enumerate the various ways they can be
compromised with real examples. We also identify the threat agents, their attack goals, attack vectors,
and the resulting consequences of successful attacks. Finally, we present current countermeasures
and best practices and discuss the threat horizon. The purpose of this review is to provide researchers
and engineers with a better understanding of a modern surveillance systems’ security, to harden
existing systems and develop improved security solutions.

Keywords: IP cameras; video surveillance; IoT; network security; physical security

1. Introduction
These days, video surveillance systems can be found everywhere. They are in the streets, at train
stations, workplaces, factories, and even at home. Intelligent applications have made large surveillance
networks practical to manage and utilize. For example, technology for facial recognition, identifying
threats, event-detection, tracking objects, and rapidly investigating incidents can be scaled to thousands
of cameras over large geographical areas.
Over the last few decades, surveillance technologies have evolved from analog systems to packet
switched systems (over IPv4 & IPv6 networks) [1]. Analog systems use cameras that transmit
analog signals (typically over a coax cables) to a recording unit. Attacks on these systems were
either denial of service by cutting wires, video injection by intercepting the cable, and record
tampering by physically interacting with the recording unit. In contrast, IP-based systems have
diverse topologies and technologies making them far more complex and which results in much
larger attack surface (e.g., VPNs, gateways, multiple servers, WiFi, access control systems, etc.).
Furthermore, these systems are often exposed to the Internet enabling attackers to continuously attack
them while new vulnerabilities are discovered everyday.
Regardless, IP-based video surveillance systems have become affordable due to the popular and
pervasive Internet of Things (IoT). As a result, the market for security devices in connected homes has
grown by a factor of 17 over the last few years [2]. Due to their convince, practicality, and affordability,
video surveillance systems have become ubiquitous in our daily lives.
However, as expected, these systems and their components have been the target of numerous
cyber attacks. For example, they have been the target of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks,
exploited to invade the users’ privacy, and even to mine cyrpto-currency [3]. These systems have also

Sensors 2020, 20, 4806; doi:10.3390/s20174806 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors

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been recruited into botnets to perform nefarious tasks. For example, in 2014, the infamous Mira botnet
targeted surveillance systems, and infected over 600,000 devices worldwide [4].
Through Shodan.io and Censys.io queries of well known manufacturers, we found over 1 million
surveillance cameras and over 125,000 surveillance servers exposed to the Internet. Of these devices,
90% do not have secure login portals (use HTTP and not HTTPS). Moreover, approximately 8%
have open SSH and Telnet ports, 3% have exposed MySQL databases, and at least 1.7% of these
devices are still vulnerable to the HeartBleed SSL vulnerability discovered in 2012. Even large video
surveillance manufacturers have exposed products. For example, Samsung’s CCTV Server has at
least 83,035 exposed devices, where 86% of them use HTTP login portals, and 1604 have ssh ports
open. Moreover, HikVision, the surveillance manufacturer with the largest market share of 24.7%
has at least 260,415 exposed devices where only 53 of them had HTTPS enabled, but with self-signed
certificates. In one study, it was found that approximately 73,000 security cameras in 256 countries are
accessible with default passwords [5]. These statistics emphasize the poor state of security of IP-based
surveillance systems. Moreover, these systems are highly targeted. In [6], the authors showed how
their surveillance system was hacked after two minutes of being connected to the Internet.
In this article, we will review the cyber security of modern surveillance systems. We will start
by detailing the composition and topology of modern video surveillance systems. Next, we will
understand the goals of an attacker by discussing them in terms of their effect on the confidentiality,
integrity, and availability of the system. Afterwards, we will explore how an attacker can realize
his/her goal through multiple attack steps involving different threat agents and malicious actions.
We will exemplify these attacks with current events and published common vulnerability exposures
(CVE). Finally, we will review best practices and known security solutions which can be used to help
mitigate these cyber threats.
To capture the attack surface, we conducted our review as follows: (1) we identified the relevant
elements (assets and actors) using real-world deployments, (2) we searched for relevant academic
papers and technical reports relating to attacks and countermeasures for each element and these
systems in general, (3) we searched Shodan to identify the relevant threats, (4) we executed existing
IP-camera attacks (such as video injection) to enumerate and understand the system’s limitations,
and (5) we used penetration testers to search for attack vectors and novel vulnerabilities in a real
commercial surveillance system used in seaports, airports, railways, and in other commercial zones.
Details on the testbed’s configuration can be found in Section 2.5.
We note that many other works have performed comprehensive reviews of IoT security [7–9].
Although IP-based surveillance systems use generic network elements and share technologies with
other IoT systems, their attack surface is different from a cybersecurity stand-point. This is because
they support and enforce our physical security, and, when compromised, there is a threat to our
physical safety and our privacy (at home, at work, and in a national sense). As a result, the technology,
threat actors, and attack motivations, and overall attack surface differ from other networks and IoTs.
We distinguish these differences as follows:

Threat Actors (Who) There is a set of attackers who want to exploit the functionality of surveillance
systems specifically. For example, state-actors or thieves performing reconnaissance over a
geographic area and criminals planning to blackmail a victim with video footage.
Assets (What) If compromised, these systems can provide an attacker with private imagery resulting
in a direct explicit violation of privacy. These systems are also lucrative assets to botnet owners
since they typically have high bandwidth (for DDoS attacks) and decent compute capabilities
(for cryptomining). The features of a surveillance system change the weight of attacker’s goals
and the defender’s priority on the defenses. For example, there is more emphasis on anti-DoS
and MitM attacks in surveillance systems than other systems. Overall, the privacy violation of
exposed data has much stronger implications than data from other IoTs.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 3 of 27

Topology (Where) Unlike other IoTs, surveillance systems are often centralized systems connected
to a single server. They are also commonly connected to both the Internet and an internal
private network—thus exposing a potential infiltration vector. It is also common for surveillance
systems to have their server physically on-site, as opposed to being in the cloud. These aspects
change attack surface by encouraging the attacker to find other ways to compromise the system
(e.g., via local attacks).
Motivation (Why) Aside from being a stepping stone into another network, surveillance systems
elicit monetary motivations such as blackmail, cryptomining, and spying for military or political
reasons. Moreover, an attacker can have a physical advantage if the system is targeted in a DoS
attack. For example, stopping video-feeds in certain geographic areas prior to an attack/theft,
or as an act of cyber terrorism. Another aspect to consider is that a DoS attack on a generic IoT
device or information system is a nuisance, whereas on a surveillance system it means that the
attacker can remotely disable video feeds at will. For example, a VPN router in the surveillance
system can be targeted remotely causing a loss of signal to all cameras.
Attack Vectors (How) Surveillance systems have unique security flaws and attacks due to their
functionality. Some examples include (1) servers which accept self-signed certificates (which can
lead to man-in-the-middle attacks) just to be compatible with many different camera models of
various vendors, (2) their unique susceptibility to side channel attacks on encrypted traffic due
to the nature of video compression algorithms, (3) video injection attacks where a clip of footage
is played back in a loop to cover up a crime, and (4) data exfiltration performed via a camera’s
infrared nigh vision sensor. Moreover, modern systems rely on machine learning algorithms to
identify and track objects and people. Unlike AI on other IoTs, these AI models can be easily
evaded/exploited due to their accessibly and flaws [10].

Although many components of IP-based surveillance systems are similar to those of other IoTs
from a technological perspective (e.g., the camera and smart fridge can both have vulnerable telnet
portals), it is much more important to identify the attacker’s motivation (target assets) and strategies
(e.g., how to infiltrate and be covert) in order to design safe architectures and effective defenses.
Thus the attack surface is not the culmination of the individual software and hardware vulnerabilities,
but rather the attacker’s intent and motivation which drive the attack goals and strategies. Knowing the
goals and strategies are key to developing a secure system and designing an effective countermeasure.
We also note that here is a good security review of CCTV and Video Surveillance Systems
in [11]. However, in [11], the authors focus on visual attacks such as data exfiltration, covert channels,
and steganography. The objective of this review is to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of
an IP-based Surveillance System’s attack surface so that he or she may better understand the attacker’s
goals and techniques in the context of these systems.
The structure of this review is as follows. In Section 2, we present a system overview with a
security oriented taxonomy, a description of the various targets (assets), and the common deployment
topologies. In Section 3, we detail the attacker’s possible motivations in the form of security violations.
In Section 4.2, we identify the elements of attack vectors against these systems (threat agents, actions,
and consequences) followed by some example attack vectors comprised of these elements. We also
ground all of these attacks and vulnerabilities with real world cases. In Section 5, we discuss
countermeasures and best practices for securing IP-based surveillance systems against each of the
various attacks. Finally, in Section 6 we provide a discussion on the threat horizon, suggest future
work, and conclude the review.

2. System Overview
Before we can discuss the security aspects, we must describe what a surveillance system is. In this
section, we first present a general overview of IP-based video surveillance systems. Afterwards, we list
some of the system’s critical assets and common deployment schemes.
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2.1. Overview
To get a better understanding of IP-based video surveillance systems, in Figure 1, we present
a taxonomy of their concepts. In general, a system can be described in terms of its purpose,
implementation, topology, and protection. We will now detail each of these aspects. To create it,
we started with a basic taxonomy which is based on common knowledge and our experience in
cyber security. We then evolved the taxonomy based on input from surveillance system engineers,
security experts, and the papers, vulnerability disclosures, and reports which we reviewed. We verified
that the information could be mapped to our taxonomy, and, if not, we updated it.
Video Surveillance System

Purpose Implementation Topology Protection

Enforcement Monitoring Communication Distribution Containment Infrastructure Physical Virtual

Monitoring
Visualization Analog Centralized Open Circuit Wired Host Network

Forensics
Digital Point Access Closed Circuit Wireless Encryption
Direct
Operations Access
Both Control
Indirect
Deterrent Firewall
Interpretation
Antivirus

Manual
VPN

Automatic

Figure 1. An overview of video surveillance systems.

Purpose The purpose of a video surveillance system depends on the user’s needs.

Enforcement The user may want to send security forces or police to an area undergoing some
violation of law or protocol. This is common in governments, transportation services, stores,
and even workplaces.
Monitoring The user may want to know what is happening in a certain location for some general
purpose, or to have a sense of security—for example, home, baby, and pet monitoring.
Forensics The user may want to be able to produce evidence or track down an individual.
Operations The user may want to improve operations by having an overview of what is going
on. For example, employees can be guided or managed more efficiently.
Deterrent The user may want to have the system visually present to simply ward off potential
offenders or trespassers. In some cases, the user will not even have a means of viewing the
video footage.

Implementation There are various ways the hardware/software of the system can be setup to collect
and interpret the video footage. We categorize the system’s implementation into two categories:

Monitoring This concept regards how the user visualizes the video streams, and how the content
is interpreted. The visualization can be provided directly to the user directly such as in
a closed circuit monitoring station, or indirectly via a digital video recorder (DVR) with
remote access or in the cloud. The interpretation of the content can be done manually by
a human user reviewing the content, or automatically via motion detection, or advanced
applications such as object tracking, image recognition, face-detection, and event-detection.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 5 of 27

Communication This refers to the means in which the system transports the video feeds [1].
With analog methods, the video is sent to the DVR as an analog signal (which is subsequently
connected to Internet). With digital methods, the video is processed, compressed, and then
sent as a packet stream to the DVR via IPv4 and IPv6 network protocols. A common
approach is to compress the stream with the H.264 codec and then send it over the network
with a real-time protocol such as RTP over UDP.

Topology An IP-based surveillance system’s topology can be described by its distribution,

containment, and infrastructure. Distribution refers to whether the cameras are located anywhere
in the world or physically located in one area. Containment refers to whether the system is
closed circuit (not connected to the Internet) or open circuit—and relies on access control to deny
users without proper credentials. Finally, infrastructure refers to how the elements of the system
are connected together: wireless (e.g., Wi-Fi), wired (e.g., Ethernet via CAT6 cables), or both.
Protection The protection of surveillance system refers to how the user secures physical and virtual
access to the system’s assets and services. Without physical protection, an attacker can
tamper/damage the cameras or install his/her own equipment on the network. Virtual protection
can be employed on the network hosts or on the network itself:

Host Cameras, DVRs, and other devices can be protected by using proper access control
mechanisms. However, like any computer, these devices are subject to the exploitation of
un/known vulnerabilities in the software, hardware, or simply due to user misconfiguration
(e.g., default credentials) [4]. Protecting the hosts from attacks may involve anti-virus
software or other techniques.
Network Depending on the topology, access to the system’s devices may be gained via the DVR,
an Internet gateway, or directly via the Internet. A user may protect the devices and the
system as a whole by securing the network via encryption, firewalls, and end-to-end virtual
private network connections (VPN).

2.2. Assets
An asset is a thing of value which may be targeted by an attacker. In our case, the assets are data,
devices, software, and infrastructure:

DVR—Media Server The digital video recorder, or other media server, which is responsible for
receiving, storing, managing, and viewing the recorded/archived video feeds. DVRs are typically
an application running on the user’s server, or a custom hardware Linux box. DVRs can also
be a cloud based server. In a small system, there may be cameras which do not support a DVR,
and require the user to connect to the camera directly (e.g., via web interface).
Cameras The devices which capture the video footage. There are many types, brands, and models
of IP-Cameras, and each has its own capabilities, functionalities, and vulnerabilities.
For configuration, some IP cameras provide web-based interfaces (HTTP, Telnet, etc.) while
others connect to a server in the cloud. Most cameras act as web servers which provide video
content to authorized clients (e.g., the DVR will connect to the camera as a client).
Viewing Terminal The device/application used to connect to the DVR or camera in order to view
and manage the video content. For example, an Android application running on a smartphone
or the DVR itself.
Network Infrastructure The elements which connect the cameras to the DVR, and DVR to the
user’s viewing terminal—for example, routers, switches, cables, etc. The infrastructure
also includes Virtual Private Network (VPN) equipment and links. VPNs are LANs which
tunnel Layer 2 (Ethernet) traffic across the Internet, between gateways and user devices,
 Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 6 of 27

using encryption. Site-to-site VPNs can bridge two segments of a the surveillance network
over the Internet. A remote-site connection tunnels traffic directly from a user’s terminal to the
surveillance network.
Video Content The video feeds which are being recorded or that have been archived for later viewing.
User Credentials The usernames, passwords, cookies, and authentication tokens used to gain access
to the DVR, cameras, and routers. The credentials are used to authenticate users and determine
access permissions of video content, device configurations, and other assets.
Network Traffic—Data in Motion Data being transmitted over the network infrastructure. This can
be credentials, video content, system control data [12] (e.g., pan, tilt, or zoom), and other network
protocols (ARP, DNS, HTTP, SSL, TCP, UDP, etc).

2.3. Deployments
There are several ways an IP-based surveillance system can be deployed. The network topologies
can be centralized (all cameras connect to a DVR) or distributed (the user connects to each individual
camera). In terms of accessibility, the system can be directly accessible via the Internet, or not at all.
In this regard, we identify three categories of accessibility (visualized in Figure 2):

Physically Open Circuit (POC) When the network hosts in the system (cameras, DVR, etc.) have
public IP addresses. This means that anybody from the Internet can send packets to the devices.
Physically Closed Circuit (PCC) When the network hosts in the system have private IP addresses,
and there is no infrastructure which connects the network to the Internet. This means that
noone from the Internet can send packets to the devices directly. These systems are also called
air-gapped networks [13].
Virtually Closed Circuit (VCC) When the network hosts in the system have private IP addresses,
and the network is connected via the Internet using a VPN. This means that noone from the
routes traffic Tx
Internet can send packets to the devices directly, unless they send packets via the VPN.
Rx

Physically Open Circuit (POC): The Physically Closed Circuit (PCC): The
network hosts have public IP addresses network hosts have private IP addresses,
and there is a physical disconnect
DVR Monitoring Room DVR Monitoring Room
r physically intercepts traffic

Internet Internet

nce
nce : a survey of security
Virtually Closed Circuit (VCC): The network hosts have private IP addresses, and
mera video surveillance there is a virtual disconnect
DVR Monitoring Room

Internet

VPN tunnel

smartphone

Figure 2. Accessibility models for deploying a video surveillance system.

Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 7 of 27

2.4. Surveillance Systems vs. IoTs

Many devices in an IP-based Surveillance System are the same as those in other IoT systems,
but there exists some technological aspects which are unique to surveillance systems that can be
exploited by an attacker. However, it is more important to understand the target system in the eyes
of the attacker to design secure the systems and to devise effective countermeasures. Therefore,
the security emphasis on the different components and the defense strategies are different in the case
of surveillance systems.

2.4.1. The Technological Perspective

There are two main aspects which distinguish surveillance systems from other IoT systems in a
security perspective: the architecture and the use of artificial intelligence features.

Architecture. Architecture: In security, we must consider the topology and relationship between
components and not just the individual devices. Some elements only become vulnerable because
of their relationship to others. In the case of IoTs, these devices often follow the same cloud
based model, whereas surveillance systems have a variety of architectures and topologies which,
if disregarded, can lead to severe vulnerabilities. For example, a camera may be safe from remote
attacks because its traffic is sent over a VPN, but the DVR may be exposed because of its web
accessibility. Another example is that the communication channels of the cameras (wired or
wireless) are often exposed and cross over publicly accessible areas, giving the attacker more
opportunities to infiltrate the network than in the case of IoTs. In this survey, we exemplify the
architectures unique to surveillance systems compared to the IoT cloud model, and the strategies
which attackers may use to exploit them.
Artificial Intelligence. In the case of IoTs, machine learning is often performed on the back-end for
data-mining purposes. In the case of surveillance systems, there are unique attacks (e.g., all image
based attacks) which enable attacks only relevant to surveillance systems (evasion, false evidence,
DoS) that can lead to significant breaches in safety, privacy, and justice –unlike other IoTs.
For example, an attacker can use adversarial markings on their clothes to evade detection, delay
investigations (plant false triggers), and identify as a legitimate personnel. Recently researchers
have shown how attackers can craft images which incur significant overhead on a model, causing
the device to slow down in an effective DoS attack [14]. These attacks uniquely affect surveillance
systems since the AI features provide attackers with new vectors towards accomplishing their
goals and undermining the purpose of the system.

2.4.2. The Attack Surface Perspective

The main goal of this survey is to provide researchers and engineers a clear view of the surveillance
system’s attack surface by identifying how, where, and why an attacker would target it. In cyber
security, these aspects are critical because all computer systems have vulnerabilities, and therefore
defenders must prioritize their efforts accordingly. Concretely, if one were to approach the security of
an IP-based surveillance system the same way as a typical IoT system, then the critical assets of the
system would be exposed leading to significant damage.
To better understand the difference between our systems and other IoTs, let’s look at some
contrasting examples:

How. Consider a DoS attack. The classic way of an attacker performing this attack on IoTs would be to
overload the device with traffic. Doing so would alert the local authorities to the camera’s area
because the feed would go down. However, here the attacker is clearly motivated to be covert as
to not alert the authorities to his or her presence. Therefore, the DoS would likely be in the form
of (1) looping video content, (2) freezing the current frame, (3) targeting the DVR to manipulate
the content since the DVR may be more exposed by its web portal, or (4) using an adversarial
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 8 of 27

machine learning attack to evade detection (e.g., hide the fact that there is a person in the scene
though use of an adversarial sticker).
Another consideration is that IP-cameras generate massive amounts of network traffic compared
to other IoTs. This makes it very easy to detect disruptions from attacks, this challenging the
attacker to compromise the devices in other ways (e.g., prefer obtaining credentials than rooting
the device).
Where. Consider a data theft attack. The classic way of performing this attack would be through
remote social engineering attacks (e.g., phishing) to access credentials or to exploit vulnerabilities
directly in the IoT device itself to gain privileged access. However, in a surveillance system that
is completely VPN-based, remotely targeting the device is not possible and the social engineering
attacks may not provide access (e.g., in the case of time-based rotating keys). Rather, it is
more likely that the attacker will perform a physical social engineering attack (e.g., plant a USB
drive) or physically tamper with the network infrastructure to plant a man in the middle device.
Distinguishing the difference is critical since it will not only indicate where emphasis in security
design must be made but also determine where countermeasures should be placed (e.g., placing
an NIDS by the cameras and not just at the web portal or DVR) and emphasized (e.g., to bury
and lock up cables, even in ‘private’ hallways inside the building).
Why. Consider how the system could be leveraged. An IoT device may be targeted for the information
or resources in which it contains. However, there is more risk for a camera to be compromised
for its capabilities (observing the video footage) or to act as a stepping stone in a grander attack.
For the latter case, consider data exfiltration: cameras may be used to exfiltrate data past an
advanced firewall since the cameras are always sending large amounts of data in real time.
Here the attacker can ride this current undetected (below the noise floor) where in contrast to
other IoTs, the traffic is typically sparse and easier to model. Another case to consider is the
fact that IP-Cameras produce far more traffic (bandwidth) than other IoTs and therefore may be
targeted for the purpose of creating massive DDoS attacks.
We note that the risk of an attack on an IP-surveillance system is higher than other categories
of IoT because (1) they are wide spread, (2) provide high payoff for the attacker (provide the
attacker with stronger processors than other IoTs for bitcoin mining etc, and direct access to
confidential information), and (3) directly impact the safety, privacy, and integrity (e.g., planting
false evidence) of the user. Therefore, understanding the ‘why’ of the attack enables the defender
to know where time and resources should be put into hardening the architecture and prevent
poor design choices in topology and access control.

In summary, knowing where the attacker will target first gives an early warning and enables the
defenders to purge the attackers from the system before significant damage is done. This can only
be accomplished by fully understanding the attack surface from an attack motivational perspective.
Therefore, we believe that this survey will contribute greatly to the researchers and engineers who
read it. The how, where and why of the potential attacks are different than other IoTs, and therefore it
is critical that this survey focuses on the narrative on these aspects.

2.5. The Surveillance System Testbed

In order to identify all of the assets and attack vectors, we implemented two commercial
surveillance system deployments and attacked them with two skilled penetration testers.
The deployments were setup in cooperation with the supplier who also assisted in analyzing the
attack vectors. Figure 3 presetns the two deployments.
In order to understand the limitations and vulnerabilities of the system, we verified nine attacks
relating to different steps of a complete attack vector: reconnaissance, man-in-the-middle, denial of
service (DoS) and the spread of a botnet malware. Table 1 details each of the nine attacks successfully
performed and their attack vector entry points (indicated in Figure 3).
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 9 of 27

Our observations were used to complete the following sections which enumerate and identify the
vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and countermeasures applicable to POC, PCC, and VCC surveillance
system deployments.

Attack Vector
Remote Site VPN Channel (S2S)
Ethernet
Deployment A Attacker
VPN Router

Switch (PoE)
3
1
2 WiFi Router

DVR
Client
Attacker (viewer)
Deployment B

Sony SNC-EB600
Protocol: HTTPS
Sony SNC-EB602R
Office Protocol: HTTP/TCP
Deployment
Sony SNC-EM600
Protocol: RTP
Remote Site
Sony SNC-EM602RC
Protocol: RTP
X
Various Home
Surveillance Models
Protocol: RTP

Figure 3. The two deployments do the commercial Surveillance System used for penetration testing
during our study.

Table 1. The attacks performed on the Commercial Surveillance System testbed.

Attack Type Attack Name Tool Description: The attacker... Violation Vector
. . . scans the network for hosts, and their operating systems, to
OS Scan Nmap C 1
Recon. reveal possible vulnerabilities.
. . . searches for vulnerabilities in the camera’s web servers by
Fuzzing SFuzz C 3
sending random commands to their cgis.
Video Injection Video Jack . . . injects a recorded video clip into a live video stream. C, I 1
Man in the ARP MiTM Ettercap . . . intercepts all LAN traffic via an ARP poisoning attack. C 1
Middle . . . intercepts all LAN traffic via active wiretap (network bridge)
Active Wiretap Raspberry Pi 3B C 2
covertly installed on an exposed cable.
. . . overloads the DVR by causing cameras to spam the server
SSDP Flood Saddam A 1
with UPnP advertisements.
Denial of . . . disables a camera’s video stream
SYN DoS Hping3 A 1
Service by overloading its web server.
. . . disables a camera’s video stream by sending many SSL
SSL Renegotiation THC A 1
renegotiation packets to the camera.
Malware . . . infects IoT with the Mirai malware by exploiting default
Mirai Telnet C, I X
Botnet credentials, and then scans for new vulnerable victims network.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 10 of 27

3. Security Violations
A security violation can be described as an attack on the system’s confidentiality, integrity and
availability (known as the CIA triad [15]). A violation of confidentiality refers to the unauthorized
access of information. A violation of integrity refers to the intentional manipulation and alteration of
information. Finally, a violation of availability refers to the act of preventing authorized users from
accessing services or resources when needed.
The goals which an attacker may have in assaulting the system can be described in terms of the
CIA triad:

1. Confidentiality Violation—the unauthorized access of video content, user credentials,

network traffic. In this case, the attacker intends to observe the video footage for his/her own
nefarious purposes. As a result, this goal puts the privacy and physical security of the premises
at risk.
2. Integrity Violation—the manipulation of video content, or the active interference of a secure
channels in the system (e.g., the POODLE SSL downgrade attack). In this case, the attacker
intends to alter the video content (at rest or in transit). Alteration can include freezing frame,
looping an archived clip, or inserting some other content. This misinformation can lead to
physical harm or theft.
An attacker may violate a system’s integrity for a goal which is not directly related to the video
content. For example, the attacker may want to exploit the system’s vulnerabilities to gain lateral
movement to external assets. The system may be used as a stepping stone to gain access to the
following external assets:

(a) Internal network—surveillance systems (especially closed circuit systems) may be

connected to the organization’s internal network for management purposes. An attacker
may leverage this link in order to gain access to the organization’s internal assets.
(b) Users—users of the system may be targeted by the attacker. For example, the attacker may
wish to install ransomware on the viewing terminal, or to hijack a user’s personal accounts.
(c) Recruiting a Botnet—A ‘bot’ is an automated process running on a compromised
computer which receives commands from a hacker via a command and control (C & C)
server. A collection of bots is reffed to as a botnet, and is commonly used for launching
DDoS attacks, mining crypto currencies, manipulating online services, and performing
other malicious activities. An example botnet which infected affected IP-cameras and
DVRs was the Mirai malware botnet. In 2016, the Mirai botnet generated a 1.1Tbps DDoS
attack against websites, webhosts, and service providers. Another example is a worm
named Linux.Darlloz which targets vulnerable devices and exploits them through a PHP
vulnerability (CVE-2012-1823) [16].

3. Availability Violation—the denial of access to stored or live video feeds. In this case,
the attacker’s goal is to (1) disable one or more camera feeds (hide activity), (2) delete stored
video content (remove evidence), or (3) launch a ransomware attack (earn money)—for example,
the attack on Washington DC’s surveillance system in 2017 [17].

4. Attacks
There are many different kinds of attacks. Some scenarios involve a single step (e.g., DDoS
a VPN link), while others have numerous steps (e.g., stealing credentials by sending a phishing
email, then installing a malware, and so on). A sequence of attack steps is often referred to as an
attack vector. Each step in the vector gives the attacker access to some asset, and the final step in
the vector fulfills the attacker’s goal. As an example, Figure 4 illustrates the flow of two different
attack vectors which arrive at the same goal. Here, both Actions 1 and 2 give the attacker access to
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 11 of 27

the surveillance system. However, Action 1 requires addtional attacks to achieve the attack goal as
opposed to Action 2 which achieves the goal directly. For example, if the goal were to disable all
cameras in the surveillance system, then Action 1 might be ‘brute-force camera credentials’ which
results in the outcome ’compromised camera’ giving the attacker control over the asset ’camera’.
However, to disable all cameras, the attacker must then attack the DVR (Action 3 or DoS the other
cameras (Action 4). On the other hand, the attacker could have achieved his goal from the outset by
launching a DDoS attack on the DVR (Action 2) if the attacker owns a botnet.
In summary, an attack vector is one possible route for the attacker to obtain his or her goal.
However, not every route is viable considering the attacker’s resources (e.g., tools, physical/remote
access, ...), experience, and knowledge of the targeted surveillance network.
To understand an attack vector, one needs to investigate the following aspects:

Threat Agent/Actor. The person, device, or code

which performs an attack step on behalf of the attacker.
Threat Action. The malicious activity
which an agent can perform at each step (access, misuse, modify, etc.)
Threat Consequence/Outcome. What the attacker obtains
at the successful completion of an attack step.
Attack Goal. The ultimate outcome
which the attacker is trying to achieve (at the end of the attack vector).

We will now discuss each of these aspects with regard to the surveillance system.

Results in… Plant

𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

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Figure 4. An example of two attack vectors which arrive at the same goal.
Send Malicious Get SSL
4.1. Threat Agents
MitM Attack Eavesdrop Packet keys
(BGP MitM) on traffic
We identify the following relevant threat (Heart Bleed)
agents/actors:
𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑠
1. Hacker—AnBrute Force
individual who is experienced at exploiting computer vulnerabilities, Observe Live
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𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 network which is executing malicious
code. The computer
Email can be an IP-camera, DVR, or any programmable device in the network.
A network host can become a threat actor via local exploitation (the un/intentional instillation
of malware—social engineering and insiders), remote exploitation (e.g., exploit a web server
vulnerability or an open telnet server), or a supply chain attack [18].
Disable
3. Insider—An authorized user of the system who is the attacker orSYN
Remote colluding
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𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

system’sDevice
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𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

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an attack vector by installing malware, changing access permissions, etc.
SSDP Flood Login
𝑁𝑒𝑡. 𝑇𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 on DVR all
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Cameras

Flood VPN Disable

Gateway Set of
Cameras
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 12 of 27

4.2. Threat Actions

We identify the following assaults that a threat agent can perform on the system.

4.2.1. Performing Code Injection

Code injection is an exploitation of improper parsing of an input which results in the input being
executed as code. A threat agent may perform a code injection to reveal sensitive information or install
some malware. One example is the cross-site request forgery (CSRF) flaw which can be used to add a
secondary administrator account on some cameras [20] (for example, CVE-2018-7524, CVE-2018-7512).
Another example is the SQL injection attack that has affected Geutebruck G-Cam/EFD-2250 cameras
(CVE-2018-7528). Finally, stack-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities have been exploited, and have
been discovered in IP-cameras and DVRs (CVE-2017-16725).
Some cameras run local HTTP web xservers to provide users with a convenient configuration
interface. However, these servers may be outdated and vulnerable to attack, such as the infamous
Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL. Another example is the Sony surveillance camera IPELA series,
where parsing vulnerabilities can be exploited to perform a buffer overflow attack via a simple HTTP
post message (CVE-2018-3937/8). Other attacks on web servers found on IP-cameras include directory
traversals and cgi-bin script exposures. Crafted URLs sent to the server can cause directory traversals
which may reveal administrator and Wi-Fi credentials (CVE-2013-2560). Sending various inputs to
exposed cgi-bin script URLs can enable live video feeds and enable telnet communications [21].
Even if the traffic is encrypted, the software may be using and old protocol or may be vulnerable
to downgrade attacks. For example, Poodle [22] and Beast [23] are attacks which intercept the
initial handshake and trick the server into downgrading the encryption to a vulnerable or obsolete
exploitable version.

4.2.2. Manipulating/Observing Traffic

A threat agent may manipulate, reroute, or observe network traffic. For example, an agent may
(1) perform a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack in the local network, and then (2) freeze a video
image or inject it into a live feed. For the MitM attack, the attacker could reroute traffic through him
via ARP poisoning, DHCP/DNS spoofing. For injection, the tool VideoJak may be used to exploit
unencrypted video streams using the RTSP or RTP protocols. These protocols are commonly used in
video surveillance systems, and may be left unencrypted if found in a PCC deployment.
In the case of traffic observation, an agent may be able to observe video content. In [24], the authors
succeeded in extracting JPEG images generated by NetCam IP Camera by sniffing the network traffic.
Furthermore, even when the video stream is encrypted, the video footage can be inferred by observing
the stream’s bandwidth patterns [25]. This is due to how video codecs (such as H.264) compress
motion between frames, and how clients buffer content. Moreover, observing traffic can also reveal
network topological information from universal plug and play (UPnP) traffic, and credentials may be
revealed as plain text in HTTP traffic (e.g., the DVR in CVE-2017-15290).
At DEFCON’17, VIPER Lab presented (https://youtu.be/XLsoEZzHqjE) [26] an IP video
surveillance security assessment tool called VideoJak (part of UCSniff). The tool can be used to
intercept Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) video streams and perform various attacks such as video
injection, video looping, and several others. It accomplishes this by (1) performing a man in the middle
attack (ARP poisoning), (2) stripping the content from the RTP feed, and (3) replacing the content
while updating the CRC.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 13 of 27

4.2.3. Exfiltrating Information

Cameras can be exploited to exfiltrate information for an attacker [11]. For example, a malware
contained within an isolated network can blink an LED light in view of the camera which is connected
to the Internet. By modulating the blinking pattern, the attacker can exfiltrate some stolen information
(e.g., user credentials) to a remote location. This has been demonstrated with hard-drives, monitors,
and networking equipment [27].

4.2.4. Flooding and Disrupting

A threat agent may prevent access to a service or data by flooding the network with packets,
or sending crafted traffic to a network application. A classic DoS attack is to flood a DVR or Camera
until the server’s resources are depleted and all new (and sometimes existing) sessions are blocked
(e.g., CVE-2019-6973). For example, using the hping3 tool [28], a TCP SYN flood can disable a
web server (e.g., CVE-2018-9158) and a UDP flood can overload a network interface. For VPN
tunnels, an attacker can disconnect all cameras by flooding the VPN gateway (visible to the Internet).
We verified this attack on a Cisco VPN Router by sending numerous key exchange requests using the
ISKAMP protocol—resulting in a loss of connection to all cameras. Furthermore, an SSDP amplification
attack [29] can be used to overload a DVR. In this attack, the agent causes the cameras to spam the
DVR with large amounts of UPnP meta-data by sending requests using the DVR’s IP address.
IP-cameras are often susceptible to these attacks because they are typically resource limited devices.
For example, some cameras can only support up to 80 concurrent HTTP connections, which can easily
be consumed. Another example is an SSL regeneration attack where the agent repeatedly requests key
renegotiations which overloads the device’s CPU. This attack is successful because it is much harder
for the server to process the messages than it is for the attacker to produce them.
Other DoS attacks can be accomplished by exploiting bugs and vulnerabilities. For example,
a camera can be crashed by sending large HTTP POST requests (CVE-2018-6479), and a VPN router
can be forced to drop all connections due to crafted packets (CVE-2014-0674 and CVE-2016-6466).

4.2.5. Scanning and Reconnaissance

A threat agent may perform a network scan to learn the topology, assets, open network ports,
and services available for potential exploitation. Off the shelf tools such as NMAP can be used to
map the network and reveal information about its hosts. An agent may also elicit responses from web
services to reveal version information, and perform fuzzing attacks on exposed web interfaces to find
potential vulnerabilities. Fuzzing is typically performed off-site since it is easy to detect.

4.2.6. Exploiting a Misconfiguration

A threat agent may utilize a misconfiguration to install malware or gain access to sensitive
data. Example misconfigurations include leaving default credentials, exposed services (e.g., Telnet),
and improper access control rules. A misconfiguration can be caused by a user of the system or even
the manufacturer. For example, manufactures often leave developer credentials and open network
ports in their final releases [24]. We have discovered this to be true in our surveillance testbed which
was using high-end Sony Surveillance Cameras [30].

4.2.7. Performing a Brute-Force Attack

A Brute-Force attack is the attempt of guessing a correct input by trying many possible
options. Brute-Force attacks can be used to reveal user credentials such as user names and
passwords. These attacks can be mitigated by limiting the number of failed logins allowed per
minute. However, in some cases, camera manufactures do not implement this security feature.
To arrive at a solution quickly, a dictionary of common passwords may be used as a guessing pool.
For example, the Mirai malware propagated to other devices by connecting via Telnet using a dictionary
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 14 of 27

of 62 common credentials used by cameras, DVRs, and IoTs alike [4]. Another example is the Remaiten
and Aidra malware which compromises cameras and other IoT devices using a similar approach [12].
In addition, the FOSCAM camera was targeted in the same attack since it had no protection against
Brute-Forcing [20] while the password was limited to 12 characters only.

4.2.8. Social Engineering

Social Engineering (SE) refers to psychological manipulation of a person which causes him/her
to perform an action on behalf of the attacker [31]. Common SE attacks include phishing emails and
baiting. In phishing, the threat agent sends a message (email, SMS, etc) disguised as a trustworthy
source, in an attempt to get the receiver to install some malware, or ultimately reveal user credentials.
In baiting, the threat agent plants a multimedia device (e.g., USB drive or microSD card) loaded
with malware. The victim then unwittingly plugs it into his machine which infects it. This can be
accomplished with free tools such as [32] and those bundled with Kali Linux.

4.2.9. Physical Access

Physical access is where a threat agent performs an attack which requires direct physical contact
with the system. For example, installing a wiretap, backdoor device, accessing a terminal in the server
room, flashing a camera’s firmware, obstructing the camera’s view, or simply cutting a wire.

4.2.10. Supply Chain

A supply chain attack is where a threat agent modifies the device (e.g., camera or router) by
installing a rootkit or hardware-based spyware during the manufacturing process [18]. Although it is
very difficult to accomplish, a successful supply chain attack can provide an attacker with complete
control over the device as well as access to the local network.

4.2.11. Reverse Engineering

A threat agent may learn the target device’s credentials or vulnerabilities by the use of
reverse engineering (RE) [33]. Reverse engineering is typically performed off-site using the same
hardware/software used by the victim. RE is the process of analyzing compiled code or hardware to
identify system’s components and their interrelationships. During this process, vulnerabilities and
even hard-coded credentials can be discovered.
One approach is to analyze the pre-compiled firmware provided by the manufacturer. In a
Black Hat lecture [34], the authors focused on IP cameras which face the Internet and analyze
them through firmware images supplied by the camera’s vendors. The authors found zero-day
vulnerabilities in digital surveillance equipment from various firms including D-Link Corp., Cisco
Systems, Linksys, TRENDnet, and more with the use of existing tools. The analysis revealed serious
security vulnerabilities such as administrative passwords, remote code execution vulnerabilities,
and more. Another case was found in Sony’s IPELA surveillance camera series. By performing
RE on the firmware, researchers from Sec Consult found a backdoor via two hard coded root level
credentials. These backdoors have also been discovered in other cameras and DVRs (In CVE-2018-5723
and CVE-2017-6432). The hard-coding of credentials may occur intentionally, or by mistake
(e.g., a developer forgot to remove the credentials after testing).
Another approach of RE is to interface with the device via its Universal Asynchronous
Receiver/Transmitter (UART) ports. These ports are typically inside the device’s casing, and used by
the manufacturer for debugging purposes. UART ports can be used to expose vulneabilites, gain access
to the firmware, run foreign applications, extract sensitive information, or upload custom firmware for
further analysis. In [35], the authors analyzed several IoT devices including IP cameras, baby monitors
thermostats, and doorbells for vulnerabilities. The authors presented a generic workflow in order to
gain access to the software of IoT devices, run foreign applications, and extract secret information
(i.e., credentials) with the UART ports. In [36], the authors reveal that many DVRs are vulnerable
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 15 of 27

to an unauthenticated login disclosure and unauthenticated command injection via UART. In [37],
researchers connected to the UART and updated the firmware with code to find that the camera was
running a vulnerable OpenSSL version (i.e., heartbleed) and discovered other vulnerabilities leading
to remote code execution.

4.2.12. Adversarial Machine Learning

Video surveillance requires either a manual or automated way of reviewing the video content for
events—for example, detecting live intrusions or locating suspects. Therefore, the domain of video
analytics has been applied to minimize the human efforts in this task. In the case of large deployments,
such as China’s state surveillance system [38], automated methods are required. Some automated
technologies include facial recognition [39,40], event detection [41–43], and object tracking [44–47].
However, since most of these technologies rely on machine learning, they are susceptible to adversarial
attacks [10]. An adversarial attack is where a machine learning model is abused by either (1) poisoning
the model during training so that the mode will behave according to the attacker’s will, (2) crafting
an input which will yield an unexpected output, or (3) learning the training data or the model itself
by observing the input–output relationship. Adversarial attacks on these technologies mean that an
attacker may be able to evade detection, falsify the recognition of an object, or even cause a DoS attack
by raising the technology’s false positive rate.
A good example of an adversarial attack on Surveillance systems is the work done in [48].
There the authors generated colorful glasses rims, which, when worn, alters the identity of the
individual in the perspective of the deep learning classifier monitoring the imagery. This attack can be
used to not only evade detection, but impersonate individuals as well. Another attack on these systems
is a DoS attack where the attacker spams the imagery with false positives—for example, by wearing
clothes with crafted license plate images to overload traffic cams [49].
Another good example is where the attacker crafts adversarial images which are designed to
consume significant resources [14]. An attacker can cause a DoS attack by placing these ‘sponge’
samples in view of the camera to either (1) slow down the device’s processor until it becomes
unresponsive or (2) depleting the battery of remote cameras.
Another example is where AI-based surveillance systems setup to measure traffic [50–52] can be
fooled to reporting traffic jams or no traffic. This would give the attacker the ability to shape traffic to
his needs, cause havoc, or block emergency routes to hospitals as an act of terrorism.
We suggest that an attacker may try to spam the system with millions of false alarms, burying
important alerts and notifications from the response team’s view. This can be accomplished by
crafting adversarial images which contain the thousands of patterns that trigger the object detector.
For example, a single picture containing numerous imperceivable patterns of weapons or faces.

4.3. Threat Consequence

The success of an assault during an attack step provides the attacker with new
capabilities—for example, access to new assets, the ability to run code, and the ability to perform new
attacks. We identify the following as the primary threat consequences:

4.3.1. Privilege Escalation

An attacker may receive new credentials or execute code in a way that provides access to
previously restricted assets. This escalation can be used to gather information, un/install software,
en/disable a protection mechanism, etc. For example, an unprotected web facing CGI method can
give an unauthenticated user the ability to bypass the login screen and access the webcam contents
including: live video stream, configuration files with all the passwords, system information, and much
more (CVE-2017-17101). Another example is CVE-2017-6432 where one can inject new users into DVR
management traffic via a MitM attack.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 16 of 27

4.3.2. Access to Video Footage

The attacker may be able to watch/download live or pre-recorded video footage. Compared to
compromising other IoT devices, this results in a significant privacy violation. The attacker could use
the content to track people, observe their behaviors, find where valuables are stored, shoulder-surf to
steal credentials, determine when to commit a crime, or blackmail an individual. Another concern
is that the attacker will alter the contents to plant false evidence such as a prerecorded video loop,
or use deep learning to insert an individual performing an activity (a.k.a., a deepfake [53]), cover up
an on-going crime, or permanently delete footage.
In some cases, an attacker may get implicit access to the video content through side-channel
attacks. For example, video compression algorithms, such as H264, only send data when regions of the
frames change. As a result, the bandwidth of the channel fluctuates in correlation to the motion in the
camera’s field of view. The authors of [54] demonstrate this concept on surveillance cameras using the
CUMSUM algorithm on the data rates of the encrypted network traffic. CUSUM is a nonparametric
algorithm which can detect anomalies in time series data.

4.3.3. Arbitrary Code Execution (Ace)

A significant security threat which enables an attacker to execute any command on a target
machine or within a target process. As a result, the attacker can perform privilege escalation,
install malware, steal data, and perform other malicious tasks. ACE vulnerabilities have been
discovered on IP cameras, DVRs, and VPN routers (for example: CVE-2018-6414, CVE-2018-9156,
CVE-2018-9157, CVE-2018-7532, CVE-2018-7512, CVE-2015-8039, CVE-2018-0125, CVE-2017-3882).

4.3.4. Installation of Malware

The attacker may be able to install and execute his own process on a target device. This software is
referred to as malware: malicious code designed to damage a computer with malicious intent. Types of
malware include worms, trojan horses, viruses, spyware, scarewares, launchers, ransomware, adware,
and rootkits. Malware can be used to steal sensitive data, encrypt or delete user data, harm the device,
mine crypto currencies, add the device to botnet, or act as a pivot point for lateral movement through
the victim’s network.

4.3.5. Lateral Movement

An attacker may gain a stronger foothold in the surveillance system, and achieve the ability to
reach previously inaccessible assets. The attacker may also be able to reach other systems and infect
user devices connected to the system.

4.3.6. Man in the Middle (MiTM)

An attacker may be able to covertly observe and manipulate traffic between two or more endpoints.
An MitM can harm the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA triad) of the system. For example,
the MitM can eavesdrop, manipulate, craft, or drop network traffic.

4.3.7. Denial-of-Service (DoS)

An attacker may be able to affect the availability of a service, data, or resource. If the attacker has
compromised cameras or the DVR, then the attacker can cause a camera to stop transmitting video
content, delete historic content, block access to the DVR, or cause a VPN link to fail (e.g., CVE-2017-3882
and CVE-2016-6466). As a result, a crime may be accomplished on the premises without digital
evidence. An attacker may also be able to evade detection without raising any alerts in the DVR.
This can be accomplished via a video injection attack or an adversarial machine learning attack.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 17 of 27

With regard to DDoS attacks: an attacker may target the surveillance network with a remote
botnet. In this case, the consequence of not filtering the traffic is a DoS to the system. We also note that,
in the case where the system itself is infected with a botnet, and is then used to launch a remote DDoS
attack, the consequence may still be a DoS to the local system since there will be congestion and the
ISP may block the system from network access. An example of surveillance systems being used to
launch a devastating DDoS attack is the Mirai botnet from 2016 [55].

4.3.8. Access to an Isolated Network

In some cases, the DVR is connected to the Internet (POC or VCC) and is also connected to
a network which is supposedly isolated from the Internet (e.g., airports, hospitals, factories, etc.).
By compromising the DVR or one of the cameras, the attacker can perform lateral movement into the
isolated network. For example, two researchers hacked into a Google office building’s air-conditioning
system portal and then gained access to the internal network [56].

4.3.9. Covert Exfiltration Channel

Some surveillance systems are air-gapped (not connected to any other network) as a security
measure. Often, these systems are connected to other air-gapped networks (e.g., military installations
and airports). An attacker who has infected the air-gapped network with a malware can exploit the
surveillance cameras as a means to covertly (1) exfiltrate data from the network such as passwords
and documents, and (2) receive commands from the attacker such as ‘start attack’ and ‘self destruct’.
An example of this can be seen in [57]. There the authors show how an attacker can use the infra-red
(IR) night vision emitters and receivers of a surveillance camera to send and receive optical messages
over an air-gap. The malware receives data by monitoring the night vision video feed in a MitM attack
and sends data by exploiting the camera’s IR illumination API via the local network. Here, the channel
is covert because IR is outside of the human visible spectrum.

4.4. Example Attack Vectors

In this section, we provide example attack vectors for different scenarios. Although there are
many possible attack vectors, we will illustrate a small sample of common vectors used to attack
IP-based surveillance systems. For the illustrations, we use the template presented in Figure 4.

4.4.1. Unauthorized Video Monitoring

Consider an attacker who wants to view the video footage of a POC deployment with encrypted
traffic. In Figure 5a, a few potential attack vectors are illustrated. A state actor may perform a BGP MitM
routing attack, and cause all of the video surveillance traffic to pass through them first. This would give
him access to the cameras’ traffic enabling him to eavesdrop on the camera–server communications.
Next, the attacker may exploit the Heartbleed vulnerability to get the SSL cryptographic keys and then
decrypt the video traffic. A simpler way might be to get the camera’s or DVR’s login credentials by
performing a brute-force login attack, or to send phishing emails to users of the system to have them
unwittingly reveal their credentials. Once the credentials have been obtained, the attacker can access
the camera and observe the live video feeds.
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Sensors 2020, 20, 4806
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18 of 27 𝑈𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒
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Send Malicious Get SSL

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𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

(BGP MitM) on traffic keys

(Heart Bleed)

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑠
Observe Live
Brute Force
Video Feed Credentials Observe Live
Get User Login to Exfiltrate Video Feed
Credentials Camera Video
Send Content
Phishing 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠
Email

(b) Stealing Archived Video Footage: POC Deployment

Disable Disable
d SYN Flood
One Plant Remote One
NMAP Query and
(cam1)
Camera Default Access
Backdoor to Camera
Access to
𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
Access to Scan
Add UserKnowledge of Download Default PlantAccess to

𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡
𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

Action 3Privilege Results Video

in…
𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
Telnet 1 Network
Action
Device 𝑂𝑢𝑡𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒

𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡
Telnet Acces

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

od Disable Terminal to SystemCamera IPs

Escalation Archived Disable Terminal
Infected
Login SSDP Flood Footage Login Devi
Footage
𝑂𝑢𝑡𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 Enables…
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦

all 𝑁𝑒𝑡. 𝑇𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 on DVR all USB Drive

𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦

𝐴𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑡 1
𝐶𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑎 𝐶𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑎
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦

Cameras Cameras 𝑈𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝐷

Action 2
𝐴𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑡 2
Disable Action
Flood VPN 2 Disable Recruit an
Set of Gateway Set of
Insider
Cameras Cameras
(c) Accessing an Air-Gapped System: PCC Deployment
Send Malicious Get SSL
MitM Attack Eavesdrop Packet
(BGP MitM) on traffic keys
Scan for
Results in… Plant (Heart Bleed)

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

Access to Access to
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙
Infected 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐 Install Persistence 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑠 to
Connectivity
Enables… USB Drive Device Malware on Device Surveillance Network…
Brute Force
Network Observe Live
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦

Credentials 𝑈𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒

Get User Login to Exfiltrate Video Feed
Credentials Camera Video
Recruit
Sendan Content
Insider
Phishing 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠
Email
(d) Disabling Video Feeds: VCC Deployment

Disable
𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

Plant Remote SYN Flood One

NMAP (cam1)
Observe LiveBackdoor Access to Scan Camera Default
Knowledge of
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

Acces
𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

Video Feed Device Network Telnet

𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

Camera IPs Disable Term

SSDP Flood Login
𝑁𝑒𝑡. 𝑇𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 on DVR all
𝐶𝑎𝑚
Cameras

Flood VPN Disable

Gateway Set of
Cameras
Disable
od
One
) Figure 5. Example attack vectors on IP-based surveillance camera systems
Query anddeployed with POC, PCC,
Camera Default Access to
𝐸𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

and VCC topologies.Access to Add User Download

𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝐺𝑜𝑎𝑙

Telnet Privilege Video

od Disable Terminal to System Escalation Archived
Login Footage Footage
all
𝐶𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑎
Cameras

Disable
Set of
Cameras
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 19 of 27

4.4.2. Stealing Archived Video Footage

Another scenario is the case where an attacker wants to blackmail an individual by obtaining
sensitive video footage. In Figure 5d, we illustrate one possible attack vector where an agent gains
access to the DVR’s terminal by performing a dictionary brute-force login attack on one of the camera’s
telnet servers. Having access to a camera’s terminal prompt, the attacker will add a user to the
system giving himself elevated privileges to query the DVR for archived footage (e.g., using RTSP
replay commands).

4.4.3. Accessing an Air-Gapped System

In the case of a PCC deployment, direct access from the Internet is impossible. However, this does
not mean that the network is impervious to infiltration. In Figure 5c, we illustrate how an attacker can
install malware on one of the user’s devices, such as a viewing terminal (tablet, console, etc.) This can
be accomplished by surreptitiously placing an infected USB drive in the area, or by recruiting an insider.
Once the malware is installed by the threat agent, the malware will scan the surveillance network to
identify all of the assets. At this point, the malware may perform automated actions designed by the
attacker (e.g., disable camera at a certain time) or it may communicate with the attacker directly over
the air-gap via bridgeware [13].

4.4.4. Disabling Video Feeds

An attacker can disable video feeds in many different ways. Let’s assume that the target system
has a VCC deployment, so access is either physical or via a VPN gateway. In Figure 5b, we show how
an attacker can disable one, all, or a subset of cameras in this scenario. First, an attacker may plant
a backdoor device to gain remote entry. For example, the attacker may arrive under the pretext of a
repairman and secretively connect a Raspberry Pi to the network, and then remotely connecting to the
Pi’s Wi-Fi access point from the parking lot. Next, the attacker will have the Pi scan the network to
reveal the IP addresses of the cameras and the DVR. Finally, single cameras can be disabled via a TCP
SYN flooding attack, or all cameras can be disabled by exploiting a potential SSP flood vulnerability in
the DVR. Alternatively, instead of coming locally to plant a backdoor device, the attacker can attack
remotely by performing a flood attack (e.g., ISAKMP flood) on the network’s site-to-site VPN gateway.
As a result, the set of cameras on one side of the VPN tunnel will be disconnected from the DVR on the
other side of the tunnel.

5. Countermeasures and Best Practices

In the following section, we review existing countermeasures and best practices which can be
used to protect modern surveillance systems.

5.1. Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems

Basic cyber defense should be considered in every computer network. For example, to detect and
prevent malware infections, anti-virus software should be installed on the user terminals and DVRs.
In non-distributed POC topologies, a strict firewall should be deployed to pass the minimal network
traffic required to use the system (e.g., block telnet, ICMP ‘ping’ packets, etc.).
In case the adversary evades the firewall, a network intrusion detection system (NIDS) can be
used to detect malicious traffic patterns. In this case, free rule-based NIDS, such as Snort and Suricata,
or commercial software can be used.
In [58], the authors propose a lightweight NIDS based on an ensemble of autoencoder neural
networks, and evaluate it on a video surveillance system. Kitsune uses incremental statistics to
track millions for network channels and then uses these summaries to extract a feature vector for
every packet. The feature vector captures a snapshot of the network in the context of the given packet.
The anomaly detection model (KitNET) is trained in real time and on site. The model uses autoencoders
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 20 of 27

to detect anomalies. This is accomplished by training the autoencoder to recontruct feature vectors of
benign traffic, and then flagging packets whose reconstruction errors are statistically high. KitNET is
comprised of an ensemble of small autoencoders, where each one covers a different correlated subspace
(set of features), and a single autoencoder which monitors the ensembles’ recontruction errors to cover
cross-subspace anomalies. The authors evaluated Kitsune on a commercial IP-based surveillance
system and successfully detected two types of reconnaissance attacks, three types of man-in-the-middle
attacks, and three types of DoS attacks.
In [59], the authors use a similar model as Kitsune except that the anomalies are detected using the
Local Outlier Factor measure (LOF). To evaluate their model, the authors used a number of surveillance
cameras and other IoTs and then infected the network with botnet malware such as Mirai.

5.1.1. Configurations and Encryption

One should carefully review the configurations of the cameras, routers, terminals, and DVR.
For example, weak or default passwords should be changed, and different passwords should be used
among different devices if possible. Moreover, APIs and other similar features should be disabled
if not needed. One should also periodically check for new CVEs that the software/firmware of all
devices are up to date.
It is also important to enable secure communication wherever possible and not just on the video
stream itself [60]. This is because an attacker would still be able to hijack a video stream (e.g., redirect
or pause video in an RTSP stream) or compromise the DVR through leaked credentials. We have also
noted that several vendors of DVR software use self-signed SSL certificates (a common default setting).
This is a significant risk and should be corrected since it enables an attacker to perform an SSL man in
the middle redirection attack [61].
To ensure the integrity of the video content, digital watermarks (DW) can be used [45,62,63].
A DW is a subtle signal hidden within the imagery (pixels) which is corrupted if the image is tampered
with. In this way, the viewer can verify that every frame is legitimate. The advantage of using DWs is
that they do not require changes to the video or networking protocols; however, they may add noise to
the image and get corrupted in the presence of video compression.

5.1.2. Restrict Physical Access

The most basic perimeter defense is to restrict physical access to the system’s assets. If possible,
wiring should not pass through public areas, all networking equipment (switches, routers, etc.) should
be protected under lock-and-key, and access to the system should be managed, logged, and monitored.

5.1.3. Defense against DoS Attacks

There are many protocols and vulnerabilities that can be abused to perform a DoS attack. As a
result, there are many different defense mechanisms which can be deployed. Good protection
involves the following steps: (1) detect the attack’s initiation, (2) select the malicious/harmful packets,
and (3) filter/log the detected packets. For the attack detection, machine learning and statistical
methods can be used such as lightweight anomaly detection and many more [64–67].

5.1.4. Defense against MitM Attacks

Proper encryption should be used to prevent eavesdropping and packet manipulation
(e.g., injecting video) as a result of a MitM attack. However, sometimes vulnerabilities are discovered
in encryption protocols, and systems may be misconfigured. Therefore, as an additional line of defense,
additional methods can be deployed. To detect tampering (video injection), one can reference time
according to shadow positions [68,69]. However, this method only works in limited circumstances.
Another option is to measure Electric Network Frequency (ENF) signals as a natural time-stamp in
indoor locations [70]. A more common approach to verifying image integrity is watermarking [62] as
described above.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 21 of 27

Another approach towards mitigating data tampering is to perform data provenance (proving the
source of the data). For example, it has been shown that every camera’s imaging sensor has a unique
noise pattern that can be used to identify the source device by its fingerprint [71]. This can be used to
identify injected video footage at the end-point. In [72], the authors used a deep convolutional neural
network to extract forensic patches from the target video and then assess if the imagery came from the
same device using a similarity network. Although the sampling of these fingerprints has been done in
the past on images, this work was performed on videos which are often highly compressed and thus
leave less evidence. Another example of data provenance was proposed in [73]. There the authors
offered a method for tracking the source of surveillance cameras in an IP-based CCTV system data end
to end using a blockchain distributed ledger. To protect against data injection attacks in surveillance
networks, the authors of [74] propose a means for increasing the robustness of the system by adding
trusted nodes. The authors show that there is a practical trade-off between the number of trusted
nodes (cost) and the system’s resilience to the attacks.
Another approach is to actively search for the presence of eavesdroppers with the ability to
manipulate traffic. In [75], the authors perform echo analysis by bouncing bursts of packets off hosts
in the network to detect additional entities along the way. This approach is analogous to how bats
chirp and listen to the impulse response to understand where objects are in the environment.

5.1.5. Defense against Adversarial Machine Learning Attacks

There have been a number of works which offer ways to harden AI against adversarial
samples [76]. However, there have been a few which specifically address surveillance systems utilizing
the temporal aspect of the video footage to detect tampering.
In [77], the authors propose the use of an LSTM deep neural network to predict the next frame
in a surveillance footage. When the predicted next frame does not match actual next frame, then an
alert is raised. The authors evaluated their approach on various attacks, such as manipulation of
the camera’s angle, focus, and change of scene. In [78], the authors present a method for detecting
adversarial attacks against crowd counting. Their approach is to use a network which not only predicts
the crowd density but also the scene depth. By doing so, the attacker unintentionally affects the
scene depth and the anomaly is detected on that output. In [79], the authors propose AdvIT, a neural
network which detects adversarial frames by measuring the temporal consistency of the video. This is
accomplished by (1) predicting the current frame using the optical flow from the previous frames,
(2) segmenting the predicted and actual current frame using a neural network, and (3) measuring
the consistency (cross entropy with the Hadamard product) between the two segmentation maps.
In [80], the authors propose a countermeasure against adversarial attacks on the image classifier of a
surveillance cyber-physical system. Their approach is to use PCA on a clean dataset to obtain an basis
on which to examine new instances by perturbing the axis.

5.1.6. Education
An advanced persistent threats (APT) is a well organized attack on an organization that spans
numerous attack steps until the attack goal has been achieved [81]. In an APT, the initial intrusion
often comes in the form of a social engineering attack, where an employee is tricked into providing
credentials or installing malware. The most effective way of mitigating these initial incursions is to:
(1) educate the users of the system of the potential attack vectors, and (2) warn users to be careful of
unsolicited messages and requests made under false pretexts.

6. Future Work & Conclusions

We have identified two main emerging threats to IP-based video surveillance systems. The first
is adversarial machine learning (Section 4.2.12). Advanced machine learning techniques, mainly based
on deep learning, are being researched and integrated within today’s video surveillance systems for
automating various tasks including: weapon detection [82], fire detection [83], in-store shopping [84],
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 22 of 27

face recognition [85], and anomaly detection [86]. In parallel, there has been an increase of research on
adversarial machine learning [10] meaning that these systems are vulnerable to attacks [87]. The second
emerging threat is how these systems are being infected and recruited into botnets [88], leading to
attacks on the internal network (e.g., data exfiltration, spying or using the surveillance system for
lateral movement) or on other external networks (e.g., DDoS, SPAM).
New attacks are constantly emerging. As a result, have noted in our review that a recent
research trend has been securing surveillance systems has been the use of advanced anomaly detection.
With anomaly detection researchers are able to identify man-in-the-middle-attacks [75], video injection,
OS fingerprinting, fuzzing and ARP poisoning attacks [58], and DDoS attacks [59]. Although anomaly
detection is vulnerable to adversarial machine learning, previous works in the domain have mostly
focused on attacking classifiers. The key difference between classifiers and anomaly detectors is that
classifiers have a decision boundary built into the model (are closed-world) and anomaly detection
models only capture the normal behaviors (are open-world). Therefore, more research is needed in
understanding how an attacker can potentially craft a sample which is detected as normal while still
achieving his or her goal of something that is abnormal.
Updating the software of such systems is also a challenging task since manufactures are focused
on their next product, and in many cases do not have the capability of performing remote patching.
Therefore, we believe future research should focus on providing an external continuous protection that
can be easily updated with information on newly discovered attacks. One way to collect intelligence
on emerging threats to surveillance systems is to use an advanced honeypot system [89]. Moreover,
by identifying emerging exploits, administrators can protect their systems before they get infected.
Finally, although in most cases the communication of advanced video surveillance systems
is encrypted, the confidentially of entities can be compromised using side channel attacks [90].
A vulnerability of encrypted video streams is that the compression algorithm (video codec) generates
more data when there is motion. Researchers have shown how content can be inferred from these
encrypted streams by learning/correlating network bandwidth patterns [25]. In [91], the authors
showed how to detect what a drone’s surveillance camera is looking at by (1) monitoring the encrypted
WiFi video stream, (2) triggering a visual stimulus such as a flashing light, and (3) detecting correlated
bandwidth fluctuations in the wireless signal. Therefore, we suggest that future research should
address the detection and elimination of these side channels.

Conclusions
In this article, we have reviewed the security of modern video surveillance systems. First,
we presented a security overview of these systems along with their components and their deployments.
Using this information, we identified the system’s attack surface comprising of its attack agents,
vulnerabilities, actions, and consequences. We then used this information to exemplify several
attack vectors. Having described the attacker’s capabilities, we then discussed recent research on
countermeasures and best practices which can be implemented to better secure IP-based surveillance
systems. Finally, we concluded the review with a discussion on the threat horizon, and suggested
future work in this domain.
In summary, this article provided the reader with a greater understanding of the attack surface
and recent advances made by both the attackers and defenders over the last ten years. We hope
that this information will aid researchers and engineers in securing the surveillance systems of today
and tomorrow.

Author Contributions: Y.M. and Y.E. conceived and designed the experiments; Y.M. performed the experiments;
Y.M. and N.K. analyzed the data; A.S. and Y.E. contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools; N.K. and Y.M.
wrote the paper. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Sensors 2020, 20, 4806 23 of 27

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