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“so-violated”:-wyze-cameras-leak-footage-to-strangers-for-2nd-time-in-5-months

“So violated”: Wyze cameras leak footage to strangers for 2nd time in 5 months

cameras, Smart Home, Tech, wyze / /
Wyze's Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera mounted outside

Enlarge / Wyze’s Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera.

Wyze cameras experienced a glitch on Friday that gave 13,000 customers access to images and, in some cases, video, from Wyze cameras that didn’t belong to them. The company claims 99.75 percent of accounts weren’t affected, but for some, that revelation doesn’t eradicate feelings of “disgust” and concern.

Wyze claims that an outage on Friday left customers unable to view camera footage for hours. Wyze has blamed the outage on a problem with an undisclosed Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner but hasn’t provided details.

Monday morning, Wyze sent emails to customers, including those Wyze says weren’t affected, informing them that the outage led to 13,000 people being able to access data from strangers’ cameras, as reported by The Verge.

Per Wyze’s email:

We can now confirm that as cameras were coming back online, about 13,000 Wyze users received thumbnails from cameras that were not their own and 1,504 users tapped on them. Most taps enlarged the thumbnail, but in some cases an Event Video was able to be viewed. …

According to Wyze, while it was trying to bring cameras back online from Friday’s outage, users reported seeing thumbnails and Event Videos that weren’t from their own cameras. Wyze’s emails added:

The incident was caused by a third-party caching client library that was recently integrated into our system. This client library received unprecedented load conditions caused by devices coming back online all at once. As a result of increased demand, it mixed up device ID and user ID mapping and connected some data to incorrect accounts.

In response to customers reporting that they were viewing images from strangers’ cameras, Wyze said it blocked customers from using the Events tab, then made an additional verification layer required to access the Wyze app’s Event Video section. Wyze co-founder and CMO David Crosby also said Wyze logged out people who had used the Wyze app on Friday in order to reset tokens.

Wyze’s emails also said the company modified its system “to bypass caching for checks on user-device relationships until [it identifies] new client libraries that are thoroughly stress tested for extreme events” like the one that occurred on Friday.

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wyze-outage-leaves-customers-without-camera-coverage-overnight

Wyze outage leaves customers without camera coverage overnight

security cameras, Smart Home, Tech, wyze / /

Internet of ethereal things —

Company points to “AWS partner” for cameras disappearing from users’ apps.

– Updated

Wyze v3 camera pointed at viewer

Getty Images

Wyze cameras have been unreliable for many users for more than nine hours today, with cameras disappearing from the Wyze app or simply reporting errors when owners try to view them.

Users started reporting issues on Down Detector just before 4 am Eastern time, and the company issued a service advisory at 9: 30 am. As of 1 pm, the company stated that its “metrics show that devices are starting to recover,” and later that there was “continued improvement,” but it was still investigating history viewing issues. At 1: 15 pm, an Ars writer was able to view his Wyze v3 camera feed and update its firmware.

A Wyze employee updated the service advisory at 2: 28 p.m. Eastern to note “continued improvement for device connection recovery.” They added that the Event tab in the Wyze app, where one can see prior recordings activated by motion or other detections, is disabled, “to investigate a possible security issue,” and it will be back soon.

Wyze attributed the issue to an “AWS partner” in an earlier update. Amazon Web Services’ dashboard showed no issues or outages as of 1: 30 pm Eastern. Ars reached out to Wyze for comment and will update this post with new information.

The Wyze subreddit was stuffed at the time of this writing with confirmations that the Wyze service was down, with many waking up to find that none of their Wyze cameras were working or even showing in their app at all. One redditor noted that they could see footage from a camera that was three time zones away. Many noted their strategy, or now intention, to diversify their security devices or implement solutions with local viewing options.

This post was updated at 4: 30 p.m. Eastern to note an update to Wyze’s service advisory.

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