Tara Thomas had a Nest camera in her daughter Avery's bedroom. It was hacked back in August. By Reed Albergotti Reed Albergotti Reporter covering consumer electronics Email Bio Follow April 23 at 10:28 AM Tara Thomas thought her daughter was just having nightmares. “There’s a monster in my room,” the almost-3-year-old would say, sometimes pointing to the green light on the Nest Cam installed on the wall above her bed.
As hacks such as the one the Thomases suffered become public, tech companies are deciding between user convenience and potential damage to their brands. Nest could make it more difficult for hackers to break into Nest cameras, for instance, by making the log-in process more cumbersome. But doing so would introduce what Silicon Valley calls “friction” — anything that can slow down or stand in the way of someone using a product.
In recent years, this practice, which the security industry calls “credential stuffing,” has gotten incredibly easy. One factor is the sheer number of stolen passwords being dumped online publicly. It’s difficult to find someone who hasn’t been victimized. “They almost make it foolproof,” said Anthony Ferrante, the global head of cybersecurity at FTI Consulting and a former member of the National Security Council. He said the new tools have made it even more important to stop reusing passwords.
It did its own research into stolen passwords available on the Web and cross-referenced them with its records, using an encryption technique that ensured Nest could not actually see the passwords. In emails sent to customers, including the Thomases, it notified customers when they were vulnerable. It also tried to block log-in attempts that veered from the way legitimate users log into accounts.
According to at least one expert, though, Nest users are still exposed. Hank Fordham, a security researcher, sat in his Calgary, Alberta, home recently and opened up a credential-stuffing software program known as Snipr. Instantly, Fordham said, he found thousands of Nest accounts that he could access. Had he wanted to, he would have been able to view cameras and change thermostat settings with relative ease.
What surprises Fordham and other security researchers about the vulnerability of Nest accounts is the fact that Nest’s parent company, Google, is widely known for having the best methods for stopping credential-stuffing attacks. Google’s vast user base gives it data that it can use to determine whether someone trying to log into an account is a human or a robot.