[url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/14/remember_conficker_its_back_and_its_infecting_police_body_cams/[/url]
[quote=The Register]A US IT security company says it found copies of the Conficker malware infecting police body cameras.
Florida-based iPower reports that body cameras it received from supplier Martel Electronics were loaded with 2009's baddest botware.
Researchers Jarrett Pavao and Charles Auchinleck found that when plugged into a PC, the Martel cameras attempted to execute the Worm:Win32/Conficker.B!inf variant.
While any PC running an even remotely up-to-date antivirus package would be able to detect the Conficker attempt, unguarded machines could still be infected. What's worse, iPower says the malware was present in the cameras before it received the units.
"In the iPower virtual lab environment, packet captures were also run on the infected PC to view the viruses' network activity using Wireshark," iPower said.[/quote]
wow, I've not heard of conficker in a long time now
Doesn't surprise me though, I bet some companies have malware and Trojans dating back to 2001 and earlier
Well this was an unexpected return.
I've had this problem with $50 chinese tablets, but you'd think the people who make police equipment would be a bit more responsible
I think the more important question is: Why are the police body cams running windows?
[QUOTE=DrDevil;49114735]I think the more important question is: Why are the police body cams running windows?[/QUOTE]
I doubt they do, the virus most likely just dropped an infected file and an autorun.inf on the cameras when they were connected to an infected machine, it's how viruses spread using flash drives / sd cards
[QUOTE=DrDevil;49114735]I think the more important question is: Why are the police body cams running windows?[/QUOTE]
They're not, the body cams are probably just USB devices, which is one of the infection vectors for conficker.
Ninja'd
[QUOTE=kaze4159;49114343]I've had this problem with $50 chinese tablets, but you'd think the people who make police equipment would be a bit more responsible[/QUOTE]
Without oversight they have no reason to.
A lot of people, in general, don't really understand the ever present security risk that inundates anything electronic. If people don't think about security, they certainly won't ask about security, let alone require independent verification of said security.
It probably doesn't help in the least that there is a massive push for getting body cameras on every cop (which certainly is something that needs to be done, but it needs to be done correctly).
Looking at electronic voting machines there's a similar pattern; there was a massive push for electronic voting machines in the US due to the issues with the 2000 election. Apparently, at the time no one thought to consider security, so now, a bunch of states have horribly insecure voting machines that they haven't the funds to replace.
I honestly worry the same could happen here. Departments get these body cameras that are full of issues, security or otherwise, and end up being stuck with them for years after the push for everyone to have body cameras ends. The implications of which, of course, being the ease in which evidence could be tampered with, calling into question the reliability of the evidence gathered from them (though, with video, it would most likely involve data being destroyed [rather than changed], which while bad is at least detectable).
[QUOTE=kaze4159;49114343]I've had this problem with $50 chinese tablets, but you'd think the people who make police equipment would be a bit more responsible[/QUOTE]
Most contractors have a nasty habit of buying OEM products from China, rebranding them and then delivering those to the customer. The plus side is a wide profit margin. The downside is you've now just made your clients vulnerable to any exploit or backdoor the OEM also added.
[QUOTE=DaMastez;49114773]Looking at electronic voting machines there's a similar pattern; there was a massive push for electronic voting machines in the US due to the issues with the 2000 election.[/QUOTE]
The irony is that there were much more pressing issues with electronic voting machines in the 2004 election than there ever was with ballots, including the company that manufactured them backing a candidate.
Do the bodycams run on windows or something?
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Didn't read the thread before posting" - Craptasket))[/highlight]
[QUOTE=Smug Bastard;49116118]Do the bodycams run on windows or something?[/QUOTE]
Do people read the OP or the few posts in the thread before posting?
This is just bodycams from that manufacturer though
[QUOTE=Sableye;49116301]This is just bodycams from that manufacturer though[/QUOTE]
Hoping so, and perhaps the cameras from others are going to be checked too. Can never be too careful.
[QUOTE=J!NX;49113981]wow, I've not heard of conficker in a long time now
Doesn't surprise me though, I bet some companies have malware and Trojans dating back to 2001 and earlier[/QUOTE]
The walmart I work at only got Windows 7 server equipment in for the local network, WIRE, etc the other day. We still run Windows Fucking XP in that store for some mind-bogglingly bizarre reason.
No wonder the self-checks are always crashing...
Now the question is, how many cameras are out there with a virus and if there are any infected computers.
Another hiccup in rolling out body cams.
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