Major Privacy Breach as Eufy Security Camera Owners Report Seeing Other Users' Video Feeds

[Stephen.R]

It's a subtle difference, but the official 2K spec is actually slightly higher resolution than 1080p (aka FHD or Full HD). By definition it's up to 2048x1080.

I'm not really sure those extra 128 horizontal pixels matter all that much, but many security cameras call themselves "2K" while going beyond that to resolutions like 2560x1440. They call that "2K" for marketing purposes, which I suppose is technically correct even if it doesn't match the official DCI spec.

So it seems. I can’t find anything that actually defines what resolution the eufy indoor 2k camera is (first result I got looking for an example “2k security camera”). Their doorbell lists “2k” but is actually 2560x1920 which just tells me that in terms of security cameras “2k” is effectively meaningless.

not sure there’s a lot of benefit over 1080p, as you said.

 

[Stephen.R]

it was easy to tell the Eufy was clearer.

Might be a bit rate difference or codec or even frame rate difference.

 

[steevn]

Might be a bit rate difference or codec or even frame rate difference.

True, but if that’s the case then none of that worked in Apples favor.

Obviously I chose HKSV and have no intention to change, especially after this article, but as far as someone setting up a new camera, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine people choosing whichever one had the clearest picture instead of other features including security.

 

[Stephen.R]

True, but if that’s the case then none of that worked in Apples favor.

Obviously I chose HKSV and have no intention to change, especially after this article, but as far as someone setting up a new camera, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine people choosing whichever one had the clearest picture instead of other features including security.

Yeah I’m not really disagreeing with you. Like i said earlier people choose convenience.

Stuff like this is exactly why I just run cheap cameras with software on a computer. Control over the resolution, frame rate, codec, bitrate, key frames at the camera level - if that’s not enough control, there’s always the option to reencode on the capturing computer.

 

[jhollington]

That makes sense, I will say that what I use my cameras for specifically the quality doesn’t matter so much.

When setting up the camera there was a noticeable difference in the Eufy app picture vs the HKSV picture. It wasn’t mind blowing at all, but it was easy to tell the Eufy was clearer.

Yeah, that's actually one of the reasons I opted for the 2C rather than the 2C Pro... 1080p was fine since I only ever planned to use it through HKSV. I don't notice much difference between the two feeds in my case, although I have sometimes wondered if HomeKit might also be compressing the video more.

 

[jhollington]

So it seems. I can’t find anything that actually defines what resolution the eufy indoor 2k camera is (first result I got looking for an example “2k security camera”). Their doorbell lists “2k” but is actually 2560x1920 which just tells me that in terms of security cameras “2k” is effectively meaningless.

Yeah, it's totally arbitrary when it comes to cameras, and generally just seems to mean anything with a horizontal resolution above 2,000. For instance, the Eufy 2C Pro is 2304x 1296.

 

[rumoursmac]

Actually, yesterday's breach didn't allow for that — in fact, it wasn't a breach so much as a "leak" on Anker's part — users were seeing videos they weren't supposed to, but it doesn't look like anybody was able to see specific videos from other users.

These 2 people wrote they could access everything in the app as if they were logged into that person's account.

Eufy really haven't said much and it's possible people were able to turn on cameras inside the Eufy app?

Doesn't matter now or in future, now that I firewall Eufy cameras in router - thanks to your tip

 

[jhollington]

These 2 people wrote they could access everything in the app as if they were logged into that person's account.

Eufy really haven't said much and it's possible people were able to turn on cameras inside the Eufy app?

Ah, yeah... I missed the ""like I was logged in as the person." In that case, if they really had access to the other account in full (as opposed to just one or more cameras from another account appearing in their own) they would have almost certainly been able to toggle that setting on as well. Literally everything in the Eufy system is controlled via the cloud. If your internet connection is down — or you've firewalled the system — you can't change settings even when you're on the same Wi-Fi network.

Doesn't matter now or in future, now that I firewall Eufy cameras in router - thanks to your tip

Exactly... as long as your router itself is secure, of course — I keep Asus' remote access features disabled as well, preferring to use OpenVPN instead for those rare times I need to do something remotely.

 

[Wando64]

Updated statement from Eufy:

Updated Official Statement

Dear eufy Security users During a software update performed on our server in the United States on May 17th at 4:50 AM EDT, a bug occurred affecting a limited number of users in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, New Zealand, Australia, and Argentina. Users in Europe and other regions...

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