Private cams exposed online

"To remove your public camera from this site and make it private the only thing you need to do is to change your camera password." Photo / Thinkstock

Live feeds snatched by website operator.

Kiwis are among tens of thousands of householders worldwide whose privacy has been breached on a website featuring intercepted live feeds.

The feeds are from personal surveillance cameras such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), digital video recorders (DVRs) and webcams and show footage of living rooms, driveways and businesses - including supermarkets, restaurants, bars and pokie rooms. Most of the 122 affected feeds from New Zealand are based in Auckland, but there are also some from Whangarei, Christchurch and Invercargill.

Links to the feeds were posted on website insecam.com, alongside those from 73,000 other properties around the world and have prompted warnings from security experts. The links also include the manufacturer and password of the hacked technology, as well as GPS co-ordinates, although in New Zealand they appear to not link directly to the addresses of those affected.

The anonymous administrator told the Herald on Sunday only one person had asked for feed to be removed, and that person was not from New Zealand.

The links were possible because owners of the cameras had not changed their default passwords.

"To remove your public camera from this site and make it private the only thing you need to do is to change your camera password."

The administrator also told online tech magazine Motherboard an automated process picked up thousands of camera feeds each week, and no one had asked for cameras to be removed from the site. Links on the page were slow to load yesterday as news of the website spread.

Exodus Security Alarms owner Dean Larsen doubted any cameras his business installed were affected as clients were prompted to change passwords on set-up.

There was a broad range in quality of equipment from China, and some "junk" versions went cheap on Trade Me, but offered little support for installers, Larsen said.

Netsafe cybersecurity consultant Chris Hails said more technology - including televisions, heat pumps and even ovens - were plugged into the internet so they could be operated remotely.

"The more things you have connected to the internet the more risk you open yourself up to ..."

It was up to consumers to update their cameras' firmware, as well as that of their router. Passwords should also always be changed to something strong and complex.

In 2012 the Herald on Sunday reported home camera systems installed to monitor rooms, including children's bedrooms, and which were on the New Zealand market, were being hacked and watched by voyeurs around the world.