Feeds from thousands of Trendnet
home security cameras have been breached, allowing any web user to access live
footage without needing a password.
Internet addresses which link to the
video streams have been posted to a variety of popular messageboard sites.
Users have expressed concern after
finding they could view children's bedrooms among other locations.
US-based Trendnet says it is in the
process of releasing updates to correct a coding error introduced in 2010.
It said it had emailed customers who
had registered affected devices to alert them to the problem.
However, a spokesman told the BBC
that "roughly 5%" of purchasers had registered their cameras and it
had not yet issued a formal media release despite being aware of the problem
for more than three weeks.
"We first became aware of this
on 12 January," said Zak Wood, Trendnet's director of global marketing.
"As of this week we have
identified 26 [vulnerable] models. Seven of the models - the firmware has been
tested and released.
"We anticipate to have all of
the revised firmware available this week. We are scrambling to discover how the
code was introduced and at this point it seems like a coding oversight."
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