Eufy’s Chinese Owners Finally Admit Their Security Cameras Were A Risk
David Richards
01 Feb 2023
Anker, the Chinese Company who sells thousands of high-risk Eufy security cameras in Australia, has been forced to come clean about the risks associated with their cameras after a stand-off with US technology website The Verge.
The Company, whose products are distributed in Australia by Melbourne-based Directed Distribution, not only lied to media Companies about the end-to-end encryption capability of their cameras, they went out of their way to disguise the truth.
The risks were that users, until now, could potentially tap into an unencrypted stream, and that Eufy’s servers – based in China – could remotely tell a camera what to do?
At this stage it’s not known whether the distributor will refund owners who are concerned about the risks associated with owning Chinese-made Eufy security.
On the issue of refunds, the Company claims they will do whatever is in their power to make things right and keep customers happy.
This is the same Company and the same camera range that is widely sold in Australia. It’s also the same camera ratings Company Canstar Blue praised last year, after giving the questionable brand the highest overall satisfaction ranking for a security camera.
Anker has finally admitted its so-called always-encrypted cameras weren’t always encrypted.
In Australia, consumers can take a product back to a retailer for a refund if a product’s capability is compromised.
In a series of emails to The Verge, Anker admitted its Eufy security cameras are not natively end-to-end encrypted – they can and did produce unencrypted video streams for Eufy’s web portal, like the ones the US media Company accessed via an ordinary media player.
When they were initially exposed by The Verge the Chinese Company went out of their way to “Cover its tracks” The Verge claims.
The Company also repeatedly deflected the issue by failing to respond to questions, which was until The Verge did what tech media Companies are supposed to do, they took the Company on.
Shortly before Christmas, they gave the Company an ultimatum: if Anker wouldn’t answer why its supposedly always-encrypted Eufy cameras were producing unencrypted streams – among other questions – we would publish a story about the Company’s lack of answers.
It worked.
In a series of emails to The Verge, Anker has finally admitted its Eufy security cameras are not natively end-to-end encrypted.
What’s now been confirmed is that every video stream request originating from Eufy’s web portal will in the future be end-to-end encrypted.
It took the actions of a media Company to bring the lying Company to the table and admit their cameras were high risk.
The Company is now claiming they are working with an outside security and penetration testing company to audit Eufy’s practice,
However, they have not identified the Company. What they have claimed is they are in talks with a “leading and well-known security expert” to produce an independent report.
ChannelNews understands that concern by USA retailers and a fall in sales in the US also contributed to the Company finally admitting the risks associated with their cameras.
In a statement issued by Eric Villines, Anker’s global head of comms, he claims that when playing Live Videos in Third-Party Media Players and ….”based on industry feedback and out of an abundance of caution, the Eufy Security Web portal now prohibits users from entering debug mode, and the code has been hardened and obfuscated. In addition, the video stream content is encrypted, which means these video streams can no longer be played on third-party media players such as VLC”.
