Thursday, December 19, 2019
Ring Passwords Available On Dark Web
In what appears to be the season for stories on how easy it is to gain unauthorized access to cameras from Santa Monica-based Ring, a report published Thursday from Techcrunch says over 1,500 passwords for Ring cameras are available on the "dark web" giving full access to Ring cameras. The "dark web" is the part of the Internet, where anonymous transactions allow for trading of often compromised and hacked information. Ring has not had a great season for the reputation of its products for security; just a day ago, The Verge gave an in-depth report on how much more Ring could do to ensure camera security, Vice called Ring's security features "awful", in addition to finding online streamers were deliberately breaking into Ring cameras and hassling owners, and major media outlets have been covering some of the disturbing attacks through Ring's cameras. The widespread hacking of Ring's cameras is most likely due to the poor choice of users in passwords (reusing already compromised passwords on other services) and lack of use of Ring's existing two factor authentication features, although it appears that Ring has not implemented some of the features of other online services, that help them determine if their users are picking poor passwords or have had their passwords stolen.