Hacker's alleged image showing of a Tesla warehouse in Shanghai where workers are on an assembly line

A group of hackers recently breached and gained access to a network of cloud-based surveillance firm Verkada that is known to manage security systems to thousands of organisations across the world.

Details:

'Arson Cats' ( also referred to as Advanced Persistent Threat or APT) gained access into Verkada after they discovered a password and username for a high-access administrative accountThe breach allowed the hacker, Tillie Kottmann, access to 150,000 live camera feeds to observe institutions and companies in real-timeThese included medical facilities, hospitals, jails, schools and even Tesla’s manufacturing facilities, and Cloudflare, among several othersTillie has admitted to having been responsible for a number of major hacks in the past including ones at Intel Corporation and car-maker NissanMoments after the announcement of this breach, a Verkada spokesperson said in a statement that all customer systems were secured, and the internal security team and external security firm are investigating the scale and scope of this issue. Verkada has also notified law enforcement.”

Context:

Founded in 2016, Verkada is known to sell security camera systems that consumers can remotely access with the help of the internet. In January 2020, it managed to raise $80 million in venture capital funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.6 billion.