Cybersecurity for Physical Security Systems: Why Cameras Get Hacked

It might seem counterintuitive, but security cameras and access panels are frequently exploited precisely because they're often overlooked in an organisation's broader cybersecurity effort — default passwords never changed, outdated firmware never patched, and devices connected directly without network segmentation, all common gaps.

Beyond the obvious privacy violation of someone viewing your camera feeds, a compromised device on your network can be used as a foothold to reach other systems — the same VLAN-segmentation principle relevant to general IoT devices applies directly to security equipment, which is often mistakenly assumed to be inherently more trustworthy than it is.

Changing default credentials on every device (a step frequently skipped during installation), keeping firmware updated, placing security devices on their own segmented network isolated from business systems, and using VPN rather than exposed ports for any remote access. None of this is exotic — it's basic hygiene that's simply skipped more often than it should be.