A lot of people are very concerned, and rightly so, with others getting access to their home security camera and now that has eventuated, and not by using insecure passwords.
A user who had some Xiaomi cameras installed around their house asked their Nest Hub to display a camera feed. Unfortunately what he got was still photos of other peoples’ homes including a baby sleeping and someone sleeping in a chair.
Apparently, after more testing this has been determined to be a widespread issue and represents a massive security vulnerability.
Google have reacted to this by pulling Xiaomi’s Google Assistant integration — temporarily at this stage. This includes all Xiaomi smart products such as light bulbs, switches, cameras and more. A Google spokesperson provided the following comment to Android Police:
We’re aware of the issue and are in contact with Xiaomi to work on a fix. In the meantime, we’re disabling Xiaomi integrations on our devices.
After this all Xiaomi integrations with Assistant have been disabled and with good reason. There must be more to it than just one user finding this fault with Google shutting it all down. Hopefully these issues can be sorted out quickly as a lot of people are invested in not just Google Assistant but also Xiaomi devices — but in the end security must come first.
It does beg the question though — is this just the tip of the iceberg? Will we see more of this happening in the not-so-distant future?
These cameras are actually really good, and hit all the rights spots for me. They’re cheap but reliable and can store to a NAS instead of needing a subscription plan.
Luckily I don’t trust the Chinese government, so I have my indoor cams set on wifi switches. My Google Assistant goodbye/goodnight routines turn them on so that they’re only powered on when I’m not around or asleep in my bedroom.