Hackers breach Verkada gaining access to security camera footage

A group of hackers claims that they have gained access to a huge amount of security camera data collected by a company called Verkada Inc. Verkada is a startup in Silicon Valley that provides security camera services to a number of major companies. The hackers claim they have gained access to live feeds of 150,000 surveillance cameras.

The surveillance cameras are allegedly inside hospitals, Tesla facilities, police departments, prisons, and schools. Hackers also claim they're able to access security camera footage from software provider Cloudflare Inc. Feeds from inside women's health clinics, psychiatric hospitals, and the offices of Verkada are also allegedly among the breached feeds.

Interestingly, hackers claim that some of the cameras, including those inside hospitals, use facial-recognition technology to identify and categorize people seen in the footage. One of the hacker group's boldest claims is that they have access to the full video archive of all Verkada customers. Bloomberg reports that it has seen some of the video that hackers claim to have obtained from Verkada.

One of the videos allegedly showed hospital workers in Florida tackling a man and pinning him to the bed. Another video showed the inside of a Tesla warehouse in Shanghai where workers on the assembly line could be seen. Tesla seems to be significantly exposed with hackers claiming to have access to 222 cameras inside Tesla factories and warehouses.

The hackers claim the breach was carried out to show the pervasiveness of video surveillance and how easily the systems could be broken into. Verkada has said that it has disabled all internal administrator accounts to prevent unauthorized access. The company says it's currently investigating the scale and scope of the issue and that law enforcement has been notified.