Earlier this month, a group of criminals allegedly hacked into security camera data from California startup Verkada Inc., breaching the live feeds of 150,000 surveillance cameras inside hospitals and other places of work, according to a Bloomberg report.
Hackers were able to view video from inside women’s health clinics, psychiatric hospitals and the offices of Verkada itself. In a video seen by Bloomberg, a Verkada camera inside Florida hospital Halifax Health showed what appeared to be eight hospital staffers tackling a man and pinning him to a bed, the publication reported. A spokesman for Halifax confirmed Wednesday that it uses Verkada cameras but added that “we believe the scope of the situation is limited,” Bloomberg reported.
The data breach was carried out by an international hacker collective and intended to show the pervasiveness of video surveillance and the ease with which systems could be broken into.
For hospitals and health systems, the security camera breach raises red flags about the vulnerabilities of connected devices that are increasingly used in healthcare, said Jeff Horne, chief security officer of Ordr, a company that provides security for connected devices.
Read the full article on Fierce Healthcare.