Information leakage from surveillance cameras is no longer new in Vietnam. Security experts in recent years have repeatedly warned about the leakage.

Hackers find private footage from home surveillance cameras, including sensitive scenes in bedrooms, fitting rooms, and spas. They then put the data for sale on Telegram. 

hxxcamera is a well-known group of hackers, specializing in selling data taken from home cameras, fitting rooms at fashion shops, and spas, mostly from cameras in Vietnam. The group consists of 100,000 members and is divided into smaller groups according to the users’ VIP levels.

In the VIP groups, the number of members is tens to hundreds of thousands of people. Sources said in secret groups, there are up to 500,000 videos and files about girls, and the members of the same groups share data with each other.

The data for sale includes video footage of sexual activities from family bedrooms, and images of girls changing clothes in bedrooms, and at clothing stores, shopping malls and photo studios. In addition, there are scenes leaked from spas. 

In order to watch sensitive shots, clients have to buy VIP service packages with the price range of VND150,000-800,000.

The cheapest service package is VND150,000, called the MINI package. Users book the package to "test the prestige of service providers". The videos are posted with some limitations, with no updates. The PRO package is VND500,000, and buyers of this package can watch all the shots of the videos.

VIP ID CAM package is a group specializing in QR Codes to view cameras directly on the Safire connect app.

To make payment for the service packages, buyers remit money via banks, or pay in cryptocurrencies. The sellers said the videos are high quality and data has been updated regularly over the last four years.

Ha Anh Phuong from Domino, a seller of surveillance cameras, said leakage occurs because people usually don’t change their default passwords, and technicians, when setting up cameras, install hidden accounts, or keep clients’ accounts to watch. Vulnerabilities also appear with cameras that are not updated.

He advised people not to use default passwords and to regularly change passwords. In addition, they should use authentic cameras that can be updated to fix vulnerabilities.

Trong Dat