Not even the puppy cam is safe from hackers

Hey y’all, it’s Austin Carr in Boston. Looking back, installing an internet-connected pet camera in our bedroom probably wasn’t a great idea [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey y’all, it’s Austin Carr in Boston. Looking back, installing an internet-connected pet camera in our bedroom probably wasn’t a great idea. But first… Today’s must-reads: - Police [charged two U.K. teenagers]( linked to Lapsus$ hack - European regulators [raised questions about Microsoft’s cloud practices]( - The new U.S. antitrust cop [threatened to halt mergers]( Telescreen for dogs Several months ago, my wife and I adopted a puppy. Derby brought with him infinite energy, tail wagging and interest in chewing just about everything in our home. On our friends’ recommendation, we purchased a Wyze Labs Inc. camera to keep an eye on Derby in his bedside crate whenever we were away. Sure, it felt risky to have a recording device in our bedroom, particularly one that can swivel in circles for panoramic views, but the cam is designed to store video on the device’s memory, rather than uploading it to the cloud. That seemed safer to us. Then on March 29, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender [published a report about vulnerabilities]( in Wyze’s products that could allow hackers to remotely access video recordings and other content stored on an owner’s SD card. More alarming, an accompanying [white paper]( detailed how these types of security flaws were discovered in Wyze cams as far back as early 2019. Despite Bitdefender making Wyze aware of these issues over the course of three years, the Seattle-based startup chose not to disclose the threat to customers until they were effectively forced to last week. Even in an industry where [data leaks](, [bug exploits]( and [corporate overreach]( are common, this looked like an especially [egregious breach of trust](. In a blog post, Wyze explained that since it was working on “risk mitigation and corrective updates,” they decided “it was safest to be prudent about the details until the vulnerabilities were fixed.” A patch released in late January for second- and third-generation Wyze cameras, the company said, addressed the security lapses (though Wyze recommended that customers stop using the startup’s original product because it’s no longer supported by firmware updates). A Wyze spokesperson did not respond to questions about the years-long delay or whether customers were exploited. Derby, a very good boy. Photographer: Austin Carr/Bloomberg At first, we weren’t too concerned because we had taken precautions. Just as I often keep our Amazon Echo muted and my MacBook camera covered, we kept the Wyze device unplugged unless we needed to monitor Derby, usually while we had to run an errand. We also positioned the camera so it was blocked from seeing much of our bedroom beside Derby’s crate. I suppose our pup’s privacy is important, but I figured the only thing a hacker might get were Derby snoring loudly, howling in his crate if he didn’t have his dinosaur chew toy or, in his early days after joining our family, sitting upright and staring at my wife and me at night while we slept, like a scene out of Paranormal Activity. But then I checked the footage. Wyze’s motion-detection sensor captured us coming and going into the frame frequently. The device’s microphone was always listening while turned on. Combing through videos on my 32-gigabyte SD card, it’s surprising how invasive the recordings appeared in retrospect—not just the more personal conversations we hadn’t realized were recorded but even the innocent clips of Derby biting my foot or us laughing about his “[zoomies](” after releasing him from the crate. I don’t think any of this content was stolen. That seems highly unlikely given the complexity of hack required. The bigger problem is the lack of immediate and proactive disclosure from Wyze. As much as we loved having an iPhone-accessible Derby highlight reel, we will, at least for the foreseeable future, be keeping the pup cam turned off. —[Austin Carr](mailto:acarr54@bloomberg.net) The big story In an historic labor victory, Amazon workers at a New York warehouse [voted to unionize](, a first for the company in the U.S. The ramifications [could spread far and wide](. On the same day, Amazon disclosed a [pay package for CEO Andy Jassy]( totaling $212 million. What else you need to know The Ukrainian government raised more than $600,000 through NFT sales that will be used to [rebuild cultural institutions]( destroyed during Russia’s war on the country. Shares in a SPAC tied to Donald Trump’s social media venture sank as [downloads of Truth Social fell 95%](. The co-founder of Twitch started an NFT marketplace with [$35 million in venture funding](. 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