Source: www.schneier.com – Author: Bruce Schneier
Comments
Jan Doggen •
“This content is not available in your country/region.”
Lazy (or stubborn) US companies who think it is too much trouble to comply with EU cookie legislation.
Hannah S. •
And that while complying with EU cookie legislation isn’t hard. IIRC it’s: Don’t set any unnecessary cookies and you don’t even need a banner. (That is, no cookies for anonymous access, one session cookie if a login is necessary.)
Charlie Indelicato •
Defense-in-depth would suggest using a mixture of hard-wired and wireless cameras. Naturally, anyone reading this blog knew that arleady.
Clive Robinson •
@ Bruce, ALL,
“The arms race continues, as burglars are learning how to use jammers to disable Wi-Fi security cameras.”
If this is “new” then the burgars have been very slow on the uptake.
There have been “Industrial, Scientific, and Medical”(ISM) ~2.5GHz band jammers around for a very long time. Certainly from the 1990’s when Analogue CCTV cameras were using them[1] I was supplying “pocket jammers” to “security forces”.
But there were plans available to turn ISM Vand “Microwave Ovens” into not just very high power FM transmitters for Amateur/Ham Radio, but “High Energy Radio Frequency”(HERF) guns that would also act as jammers out to easily a half mile or more if you could get the “Line of Sigh Hight”(LoSH).
OK we’ve the 5GHz band to jam as well these days but it’s not as hard as some think[2]. It’s why back in the 1980’s we were supplying X-Band Links (10-12GHz) to various people. There were neither the receivers or jamming equipment back then.
The best trick if you can do it is not to jam but to spoof.
You can do this with a Raspberry Pi the software is already out there. You simply record the CCTV camera TX for a while. Then play it back as a closed loop at a suitably high power. Thus the RX and following security systems see the spoofed signal and in effect unless extra precautions are taken[3] completely ignore it.
Thus the real question is why this has taken the better part of a third of a century to become “a problem” for “the uninitiated”?
[1] Swann in Australia used to make combined cameras and ISM band TX in a 9V powered cube less than half an inch on the flats that sold for well less than $100 USD. ICOM made a scanner/receiver that could fit in your shirt pocket that had LCD display that you could not just find them with but see what the field of vision was…
[2] The thing to remember is it’s the receiver(RX) antenna where the jamming war is won or lost. The higher the frequency the more “Line of Sight”(LoS) things are. This means the CCTV camera antennas have to see the RX antennas which frequently puts them high up and in the clear. It also usually means the RX antennas are easily LoS from “off site” thus to jam you need either a higher gain antenna, higher RF power, or preferably both pumping energy at the RX antenna. For greatest effect you need to modulate the jamming signal to have some of the characteristics of the CCTV signal. That way not only do you overload the RX front end, you get deep within the system and fritz with both the demodulation and signal recovery phase lock circuits.
[3] There are several ways of dealing with this. The first is to use multiple antennas quite some distance apart in a “Space Diversity” or even “Multiple Input Multiple Output”(MIMO) systems in effect acting like a “Very Long Baseline”(VLB) telescope. The second is to just encrypt the digital signal using the right mode. The third is to have a crypto based secure real-time authentication sub channel/carrier. There is also with movable cameras the automated equivalent of haptic feedback, where the RX control channel sends small movement commands and the RX software checks for a direct correlation in the camera video output. This latter method is my preferred way because you can make the movement commands “Truly Random” thus not possible to simulate by an attacker.
Clive Robinson •
@ ALL,
Having whizzed through the comments on Tomshardware, they mostly do not appear to understand security.
Most householders unless they have reason to think there has been an intrusion, don’t bother checking their CCTV no matter how it gets from the camera to the recorder. And in many cases 30days or less later the recording is deleted.
Likewise most police forensics if they actually do them, only work with a fresh crime scene not one that’s more than a week or so old.
As I mentioned on this blog quite some years ago now there is a difference between most male and female burglars. Which importantly is why very very few female burglars are known/caught.
Men go for “the big prize” sensible women go for the “unnoticed”.
The householder almost always notices “the big prize” is gone very quickly and the Police come tromping in. But the little but valuable items often are not noticed gone for quite a while, thus are assumed lost or stolen by an insider.
As CCTV recording and forensics are trashed what is there to go on.
Also sensible women don’t “fence” items in the way men have a bad habit of doing. Men all to often go for “quick cash” thus get maybe 10cents on the dollar. Sensible women sell a lot later at way better returns. I won’t go into the details because I don’t want to make successful burglary more frequent.
PoliceCasualty •
IEEE 802.11w protected Management Frames cannot be de-authed. However adoption rate might be low, only a few devices I own are safe.
JonKnowsNothing •
All
Might not be too much of a problem for 50% of housing, as AirBnB has now banned some surveillance cameras in their short term rental listings.
Airbnb said on Monday that it’s banning the use of indoor security cameras in rentals around the world by the end of next month.
Airbnb had allowed the use of indoor security cameras in common areas like hallways and living rooms, as long as the locations of the cameras were disclosed on the listings page.
Under the new policy, hosts will still be allowed to use doorbell cameras and noise-decibel monitors, which are only allowed in common spaces, as long as the location and presence of the devices are disclosed.
The policy also bars hosts from using outdoor cameras to surveil indoor spaces.
This part might be tricky
- The policy also bars hosts from using outdoor cameras to surveil indoor spaces.
as this is a primary method used by LEAs to surveil properties both external and internal. In the USA, having a camera outside the property line, pointing and recording what takes place over that line is perfectly legal. (see windows, window coverings, glass resonance).
===
ht tps://www.theg uardian.com/technology/2024/mar/11/airbnb-ban-indoor-security-camera-rental
- Airbnb bans hosts from using indoor security cameras in rentals
- Platform said change will take effect by the end of next month [~04 2024]
Martin •
And that’s why wireless and security does not mix. “Wi-Fi security camera” is an oxymoron.
Bownse •
We just ended a 3-month ordeal with the house to our N. being occupied by unauthorized squatters. We have security cameras (hard wired) but they found and exploited the dead zone. I added a WiFi camera to cover it, and you could tell from their activity that they adapted (movements started pushing farther away from us with traffic pausing long enough to auto-trigger-recordings to end and with it moving farther away with individuals walking farther to get to the house.
Then strange drop-outs of video just as certain vehicles arrived. I SWAGged that it might be some kind of jammer. This is just more evidence.
rubynash •
AirBNB’s policy effectively bans people from listing units in high-rise condominiums, as these almost always have a camera at the front door (so residents can see who’s at the intercom) and usually in the lobby; and sometimes inside any exterior doors, in the elevators, etc. So I doubt they’ll stick with it.
I’m kind of amazed that the makers of these cameras had no plan related to dropped signals. Sure, we expect internet-of-things devices to be crap in terms of security, so it should surprise no one if these allow de-authentication, sniffing, spoofing, and such. But it’s wi-fi; simply running a microwave oven could knock it offline for a while. Unless people are buying these cameras in dollar stores, it would seem reasonable to expect an SD card slot.
Clive Robinson •
@ Bruce, ALL,
Re : Related crime.
As noted on the Tomshardware page the comments talk about using cables and the fact that many cameras are connected to Internet services.
It took me a little while to remember where I’d read it, but in the UK we are getting increasing attacks on “fiber in the ground”.
Basically fiber is getting chomped with cutters or turned into crispy sculptures with a gallon of petrol poured in the hole then set on fire.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/12/uk_network_operators_want_government/
So… If your security camera footage is “in the cloud” it might just stop with a puff of smoke…
ben •
Burglars have taken another appoach here. They just shutdown the power of the whole town (~500 people). They theft only in 3 houses before leaving.
rubynash •
@ ben,
They just [shut down] the power of the whole town (~500 people).
Of course there needs to be battery backup. Even a few non-recharageable AA cells, costing a dollar, should be able to keep a camera going for hours; maybe days if it’s a just taking a snapshot every second or two.
Power companies might start to get suspicious of neighbourhood-wide power cuts, though doing it by pulling a tree branch onto a distribution circuit might alleviate suspicion. The thieves could also cut power to individual houses, those power lines (or meters) often being out of view. Some hedge clippers could easily do it, and would-be thieves might even survive if they insulate the handles. Do that right after someone leaves for work, and come back for the robbery 7 hours later and hope any batteries have died.
Or, why not forge a power-company letter to the local resident—”due to routine maintenance on your local circuit, we may need to disconnect your power for several hours between the hours of 9 and 5 on [date]. Our workers always carry official I.D., but you don’t need to be home.” (Nobody knows what those I.D. cards look like, right? But just skip the robbery altogether if it looks like anyone’s home.)
Add a white van, a high-viz suit, and some real line-working equipment (does anyone think the sellers are checking credentials?) and you’ll be unstoppable.
Is it possible that the bulk of our “security” measures are guarding against movie-plot threats, just to make us feel good? One could just as well skip all the above, and get recorded while wearing a mask and a black hooded sweatshirt, as people did 50 years ago.
lurker •
@z
how do you deauth pnp? this stuff comes from Walmart &c. and its greatest task is to move across the counter.
I’m with @Martin, it’s an oxymoron, as are most wired cameras connected to the internet with weak or no security.
Sean •
Well, thanks to copper thieves, fibre by me is rather well protected, if the providers remember to actually put the vandal resistant covers back on, or if they get the dimensions right in the first place. But then again, having 2000km of rail infrastructure stolen in a single year, with no clue, does rather point o how competent the PTB are. As in track, overheads, and even complete stations down to the foundations.
echo •
Just use a wired system.
And like I’ve already said rules are there to protect the rest of us from men in a world where men get to set and police the rules. The penny is slow to drop with this one. Someone will eventually get it…
As I mentioned on this blog quite some years ago now there is a difference between most male and female burglars. Which importantly is why very very few female burglars are known/caught.
Men go for “the big prize” sensible women go for the “unnoticed”.
The householder almost always notices “the big prize” is gone very quickly and the Police come tromping in. But the little but valuable items often are not noticed gone for quite a while, thus are assumed lost or stolen by an insider.
It’s funny how you never mentioned that every time I brought up criminology and gender because this is exactly the same material I read I was referring to and you never said a peep. Have you also read gender studies material on the psychological impact of “white knighting” or women’s self-actualisation yet, or other behavorial and social differences? That’s before you get into public policy and institutional behaviours and discrimination which doesn’t effect you. Then we have to get into definitions of what crime actually is and normalisation and habituation, and proxies and social violence. So when you steam in mentioning a very fresh academic paper claiming psychopathy occurs to the same degree in men and women you’ll have to excuse me when I suggest taking a pause for thought before racing to any conclusions which men are very prone to do in a system which, excuse me, is heavily weighted by men. Like, do women actually get a say without having to campaign for an entire decade?
There’s plenty of other material explaining how men take credit for women’s work and “No woman’s opinion is valid until a man says it”. Do we have to wait “quite some years” before this is mentioned?
When Clive says this it’s “SECURITY”. When I say this it’s “twaddle”.
Dave •
There’s essentially zero detail on what happened in that story, was it a single case, multiple cases, a case of a WiFi camera being on the fritz and jammers being blamed, …?
Dave •
Oops, didn’t notice there were two links, I’d only read the LAPD story.
Wonder if it’s possible to set up something to detect this type of attack? Either look for the sudden appearance of lots of noise on 2.4GHz, or channel utilization jumping to 100%?
lurker •
@echo
“Just use a wired system.”
Yup, you would, I would, buy the cable and connectors, install it all neatly, drilling holes in the walls where needed. Could be a tidy little business venture on the side. How do think it would compete with the likes of Amazon or Maplin? Just open the box, switch on, and Bob’s your auntie.
lurker •
@Dave
Go to the G.. PlayStore, choose from several “WiFi Network Analyzers”, iOS equivalents ??
we’re still burning bras? •
@ echo,
“Like, do women actually get a say without having to campaign for an entire decade?
There’s plenty of other material explaining how men take credit for women’s work and “No woman’s opinion is valid until a man says it”. Do we have to wait “quite some years” before this is mentioned?”
Bye now, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
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Original Post URL: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/03/burglars-using-wi-fi-jammers-to-disable-security-cameras.html
Category & Tags: Uncategorized,Internet of Things,jamming,theft,Wi-Fi – Uncategorized,Internet of Things,jamming,theft,Wi-Fi
