What you need to know
- A Eufy server upgrade early this morning resulted in some of its customers' private videos being made visible to other customers.
- The issue was identified and fixed within the hour.
- Eufy is adamant that the breach only affected a tiny percentage of its users.
Early this morning, Eufy customers in several different countries noticed something extremely odd — instead of seeing their own video feeds and recordings, they were seeing videos from other Eufy customers. As reported by 9to5Mac, the privacy breach was first noted on Reddit, and then other reports began surfacing around the web.
Apparently, the issue resulted from a bug that occurred during a scheduled server upgrade, and it was fixed within an hour after it was first noticed and reported.
In response to the breach, a spokesperson for Eufy issued the following statement to our Managing Editor, Daniel Bader:
As first reported by @9to5mac, random cameras feeds started showing up in some Eufy users' apps this morning.
An Anker rep told me that the problem lasted only an hour and affected a tiny portion of the total user base, and didn't affect baby monitors fwiw. pic.twitter.com/qZoj8V682DAs first reported by @9to5mac, random cameras feeds started showing up in some Eufy users' apps this morning.
An Anker rep told me that the problem lasted only an hour and affected a tiny portion of the total user base, and didn't affect baby monitors fwiw. pic.twitter.com/qZoj8V682D— Daniel Bader (@journeydan) May 17, 2021May 17, 2021
As the above statement says, the breach only affected a minute percentage of Eufy customers in seven countries, and it did not affect certain devices like baby monitors, pet monitors, or security systems, but likely Eufy's connected cameras like the EufyCam 2 Pro. Eufy has been contacting the affected parties since the breach happened, though we have not been made aware of what remediation Eufy is taking with these customers.
Millions of people worldwide rely on connected security cameras in their smart homes to monitor family, pets, or intruders, and the last thing they want or expect is for their security provider to make such a massive mistake. While having cloud backups and access certainly has its benefits, this breach proves how dire the drawbacks can be.
Thankfully, there are many great security cameras with local storage and smart video doorbells that store your data locally that don't need to send any data to the cloud.
