Greg's Corner

Is your Ring doorbell at risk of attack?

Ring Doorbells have become very popular over the past few years. Not only does it offer the convenience of knowing who’s at your door while you’re not home, but it also records any interaction that occurs at your front door. With the assistance of Ring Doorbells, all sorts of interlopers have been caught ranging from porch pirates to home intruders. They’ve become so popular and ubiquitous that police stations around the country are recommending residents install one and become part of a police network of cameras. So, it should come as no surprise that bad actors may want access to your camera.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf3wLc0giZI%5D

Amazon, owners of Ring, recently announced that there was a vulnerability in Ring Doorbells that could have exposed your wifi password to attackers. During the authentication process, the communication between your doorbell and the was unencrypted leaving your wifi password open in plain text and potentially available to hackers. While any attack wouldn’t be able to control the camera itself, once your home wifi is vulnerable an attacker could compromise any number of systems especially if you have a number of smart home or internet of things (IoT) devices.

Thankfully, Amazon patched this vulnerability before they made it public knowledge. That’s not even taking into account that any attack against the doorbell would have to happen at the precise moment of authentication and the attacker would need to be in range of your home wifi. The chances of a hacker being on your property at the time of authentication are very slim. However, this does show that no smart home or internet-enabled security device is foolproof. When purchasing such a device, do your research in finding out which ones are the most secure and which ones receive regular updates from the manufacturer. Otherwise, you could be as secure as leaving your front door unlocked.