(New York = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Yeon-sook = The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 11th (local time) that private closed-circuit TVs (CCTVs) and webcams installed around the world are being abused as tools for military intelligence collection, target surveillance, and attacks in modern battlefields due to poor security.
Based on interviews with intelligence agencies, cybersecurity experts, military officials, and hackers, WSJ reported that everyday security devices are turning into tools of war.
According to reports, intelligence agencies in each country are attempting to gain unauthorized access by finding devices with weak security among cameras connected to the Internet and entering passwords in large quantities.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has made not only camera hacking but also the task of analyzing vast amounts of video data easier. Algorithms analyze vast amounts of video data to find scenes and patterns that intelligence agents will pay attention to.
“AI has changed everything,” said the leader of Team One Fist, an international hacker group that supports the Ukrainian military.
Cameras installed for security and safety have been transformed into tools to identify enemy movements, find attack targets, and check the results of attacks.
There are a series of cases of camera hacking being used in actual battlefields.
Russia and Ukraine have been using camera hacking to monitor each other's movements, find new attack targets, and assess attack damage.
Team One Fist accessed cameras in the Russian-occupied Crimea Peninsula in late 2022 and tracked military assets, including Russian military helicopters. In this process, Russian air force bases were identified along the helicopter's movement path and relayed to the Ukrainian military to assist in the attack.
Russian hackers also attempted to hack residential webcams in Kiiu in 2024 to search for targets and collect information needed for a missile attack.
Ukrainian authorities explained that after the outbreak of war in 2022, they identified about 40,000 cameras that pose a security risk and strengthened security or blocked them.
Camera hacking is also being used in conflicts in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, an Israeli chicken farmer turned on his smartphone's webcam app and discovered that the language setting had been changed to Arabic.
An investigation by authorities revealed that hackers had hacked Chinese-made cameras to monitor the movements of Israeli security forces at the nearby border.
Israel is also said to have used hacking of Iran's traffic cameras to collect information about the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Afterwards, hacking forces linked to Iran retaliated by hacking hundreds of Israeli webcams and security cameras.
According to Israeli authorities, this year alone, hacking groups linked to Iran hacked more than 250 major security cameras, posing an immediate threat to national security.
Vehicle license plate recognition cameras, strategically important locations, security cameras near soldier gathering areas, and Israeli military bases near the Lebanese border were targeted.
WSJ reported that hacked cameras are now performing some of the battle-related information collection, such as target search and damage assessment, which were previously handled by aerial reconnaissance or ground intelligence agents, and are "better than spies."
The explanation is that hacking a camera installed in a good location allows you to get closer to the target and poses less risk than approaching directly.
The danger is not limited to military installations.
Experts point out that cameras connected to the Internet lack built-in security features and often do not receive proper software updates or ongoing inspections. In particular, connected cameras that are installed and operated without permission by facility management departments, rather than IT departments within companies or governments, are in security blind spots, and there are also reports of ransomware groups exploiting them as a detour to infiltrate networks.
