Peekaboo: Don’t Be Surprised by These Not So Candid Cameras

Tenable Research discovered a major software flaw, dubbed Peekaboo, which gives cyber criminals control of certain video surveillance cameras, allowing them to secretly monitor, tamper with and even disable feeds. Here’s a quick look at what we know today.

What’s Peekaboo?

Peekaboo is a security vulnerability in software made by NUUO, a global video surveillance vendor. The software is used in devices like closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and networked video recorders and storage devices. When cyberattackers exploit the flaw, they can manipulate the cameras and take them offline – all without ever being detected.

Who does Peekaboo affect?

Organizations all over the world use NUUO software in their video surveillance systems to protect shopping centers, banks, hospitals, schools and other crowded locations. NUUO also OEMs and white labels its software to more than 100 brands and 2,500 models of cameras. In fact, preliminary estimates show that Peekaboo could affect up to hundreds of thousands of web-based cameras and devices worldwide.

How does Peekaboo work?

Peekaboo can give cyber criminals control of video surveillance cameras using NUUO software, allowing them to secretly monitor, tamper with and even disable the feed. Even worse, once they’ve hacked the camera, they can access the camera feeds of any other device it’s connected to.

By exploiting the Peekaboo vulnerability, cyberattackers can steal specifics about all the networked cameras, including key data like login credentials as well as the make and model, IP address and port. All this can happen in the span of a few seconds, without the admins’ knowledge.

Here’s what the hack looks like….

What’s the potential impact of Peekaboo?

Devices with NUUO software are used in diverse environments like banks, retail locations and transportation centers. By exploiting this weakness, attackers could monitor CCTV feeds to surreptitiously gather information, disable cameras or tamper with security footage. For example, they could replace the live feed with a static image of the surveilled area, allowing criminals to enter the premises undetected by the cameras.

What should I do about Peekaboo?

There is no patch available at this time. We advise affected users to restrict and control network access to the vulnerable devices to authorized and legitimate users only.

How was Peekaboo discovered?

Jacob Baines, senior research engineer at Tenable, discovered the Peekaboo vulnerability in NUUO NVRMini2. He then began the disclosure process with NUUO.

This isn’t the first time NUUO NVR devices have been in the news. Just last year, the NUUO NVR devices were specifically targeted by the Reaper IoT botnet.

Want more information?

• Read press release
• Read security advisory
• Read blog post, "Tenable Research Advisory: Peekaboo Critical Vulnerability in NUUO Network Video Recorder"