If you are an IP cameras supplier or take turnkey projects for digital surveillance using IP cameras, you must read my experience before you go for your next installation. It is crucial because we almost lost a prestigious project due to this small oversight. Thanks to the immediate action by our installers who rectified the problem within one hour, saving us from a big disgrace. And if this can happen to us, tomorrow it may happen to you as well.
We have installed IP cameras in a school. The school administration was delighted with our IP cameras and the system until this catastrophe fell on us. One of the boys in the school got hold of IP Scanner software, many of which are freely available on the web. He ran the software over the school’s local area network, obtaining the IP addresses of all the IP cameras and their associated information. Next, he searched the web and found a website where default user names and passwords are available for most major brands.
He then accessed the cameras, created URLs for each of them, and broadcasted them to the whole school. What an embarrassment it caused to our company! Anyway, the moral of the story is, Be sure to change the default user name and password of IP cameras in all your installations. We have added “Change default user names and password” in the installation guidelines checklist, and you also must do before a disaster strikes.