Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera. Its Data Shows How the System Really Works
Hackers accessed Flock camera data, revealing system operations and capturing millions of vehicle images.
A hacker collective named stegan0gram successfully compromised a Flock Safety camera, extracting its data including millions of vehicle images and logs. They were able to copy the device's storage and recover an encryption key, providing an unprecedented look into the system's operations, which detect both vehicles and people. The group aims to publish details on their methods to encourage others to replicate their actions.
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The lesson from this incident
Full lessonHackers physically accessed a Flock Safety surveillance camera and extracted its onboard storage, recovering an encryption key and millions of vehicle and pedestrian images — data that was never intended to be accessible at the device level. The root cause lies in poor device hardening: encryption keys stored alongside the data they protect offer no real security, and physical access to the device yielded full access to sensitive records. This matters because surveillance infrastructure operates at the intersection of physical and cyber security, and a compromise of one camera can expose the operational logic and data of an entire network. The incident also reveals that these systems collect far more data than publicly disclosed, raising serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.
What helps against this
How we list vendors- Cyber asset inventory
You cannot patch, monitor or protect the devices, cloud resources and accounts you do not know you have.
- Encryption and key management
Stolen data stays unreadable, and the keys stay under your control.