My security camera shipped a GitHub admin token in its login page(hhh.hn)
640 points by hhh 48 days ago | 231 comments
tl;dr: A researcher extracted firmware from Hanwha Vision security cameras by reverse-engineering the fwupgrader binary (with Claude Code's help) to recover a hardcoded AES key/IV used across the model line. Inside the rootfs, they found a GitHub admin token duplicated across ~30 files—caused by Vite dumping the entire CI `process.env` into the built UI—granting access to hundreds of repos, alongside env vars referencing DoD-assigned IP addresses. Hanwha revoked the token within 12 hours of disclosure.
HN Discussion:
  • Isolate IP cameras on a separate VLAN without internet access as basic defense
  • IoT vendors routinely ship terrible security with hardcoded credentials, this is unsurprising
  • DoD-linked IP addresses in the firmware is the more alarming finding
  • Seeking open/supported firmware alternatives for cameras to avoid these issues
  • LLMs like Claude have made reverse engineering and defeating obfuscation trivial