Owners Move To Ditch High Risk Eufy Security Cameras, Distributor Fails To Say Where Servers Are Located

The maker of Chinese security camera Eufy which is widely sold at JB Hi Fi appear to have a major security problem but despite concerns the local distributor Directed Electronics Australia is not saying where the servers the cameras are located.

Several leading technology sites claim the servers are based in China.
Owners of Eufy cameras are now ditching the brand because of security concerns.

Our request to Directed Australia follows the exposure of a huge Eufy privacy breach that resulted in both live and recorded camera feeds being shown to complete strangers.

What’s been revealed is that right around the world including in Australia and New Zealand strangers have had complete access to an account, including control of pan-and-tilt cameras where fitted.

ChannelNews can reveal that the app that comes with the JB Hi Fi sold cameras is developed by Chinese app developers Oceanwing which is a division of Anker Innovations a 100% owned Chinese Company.

Anker Innovations is a Chinese electronics company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong.

Online owners of Eufy cameras have also complained that when an Internet feed to an Eufy camera is down they have been unable to activate the SD card capability built into some of their cameras.

Social media sites reveal that Australian and New Zealand owners are up in arms over the blatant breach with some suspecting that Eufy can “easily spy on a house or inside a house” via their cameras.

Reddit user MeChum87 said of the problems associated with his Eufy camera feed “I checked my app today (from New Zealand) and noticed none of the videos were of my own. They are from someone in another country (nice Mustang) – “Kangaroo Cam” alludes to being in Australia somewhere. I can also see their contact details (as added accounts)”.

They added “I have 3 little children; I am very worried that others are looking at my cameras too. Huge Security Breach Eufy – WTF. EufyCam – I’m throwing mine in the bin, I suggest you do the same.

Others said they’d seen the same thing.

Another Eufy owner said ““Noticed that my home base was playing up with red light then nothing, so I jumped into the app and had access to someone else’s doorbell.”

“I’m having the same issue. I could access everything on somebody else’s account, including the live feed and I was controlling their camera (pan, tilt, rotate). I was able to take video recordings, using the in-app record button, which saved to my phone […] The camera I had access to was in the Los Angeles time zone.”

“I have the Eufy camera pro 365 battery life Home bas 2. I’m from Australia and i can see someone’s cameras from America.”

Another Owner said “I’m seeing someone’s camera from Florida at the moment and I’m from Australia. They have cameras inside their house and that is just creepy.”

JB Hi Fi have not said whether they will stop selling the Eufy cameras.

Anker responded in the USA claiming “Due to a software bug during our latest server upgrade at 4:50 AM EST today, a limited number (0.001%) of our users were able to access video feeds from other users’ cameras. Our engineering team recognized this issue at around 5:30 AM EST, and quickly got it fixed by 6:30AM EST.

The issue affected users at a small rate in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Users in Europe remain unaffected.

Our customer service team will continue contacting those who were affected. Eufy Baby Monitors, Eufy Smart Locks, Eufy Alarm System devices and Eufy Pet Care products remain unaffected.

Karl Shuster the head of Product & Marketing at Melbourne based Eufy distributor Directed Electronics Australia, has not responded to requests for information.

We have asked them what Country the servers for Eufy are located.

We also want to know what the local distributor is doing to appease local owners of the Chinese security camera in Australia whose details appear to have been compromised.
We also want to know what Directed Electronics and Anker are doing to ensure that this problem does not happen again in Australia.