Entropic Releases State of Consumer Surveillance Devices Snapshot

News provided by

Jun 23, 2020, 14:00 ET

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 23 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Entropic, an innovator in cyberprivacy and decentralization, today released a snapshot of field telemetry on covert consumer surveillance devices.

These devices have historically been abused, with incidents of spying in inappropriate areas of rental properties, conference rooms, hotel rooms, home stays, and public areas to surreptitiously monitor the activities of individuals, and erode their privacy.

Unlike consumer smart devices, covert consumer surveillance devices have more focussed goals - to be as inconspicuous, and as autonomous as possible. This maximizes the amount of time they can exist in their deployed environment without being discovered.

DeviceOwl uses AI to help individuals instantly reveal the surveillance potential of thousands of these hardware devices, helping to protect their privacy, and the privacy of those they care about.

deviceOwl is available via the App Store

Device Observations

Devices that use any type of network communication greatly increase their chances of being discovered by device discovery tools, including consumer radio frequency (RF) detectors, and software-based network device scanners.

Telemetry from Entropic Labs reveals that 42% of these devices don't have any networking capabilities, with 86% supporting storage to SD/TransFlash cards, and 8% offering traditional wired audio/video connections, as alternative ways to transfer surveillance data from the device.

This means they can't be found by network-based device discovery tools.

Many of the remaining devices only activate their network for brief periods of time, reducing their chances of being discovered.

To remain inconspicuous, devices can be miniaturized and/or disguised as trusted household objects. Entropic tracks devices with over 100 unique form factors, including smoke alarms, clocks, bulbs, and motion detectors.

10% of these devices use casing designs that are either clones, or modifications of trusted brand name devices, making them extremely difficult to detect.

Devices that don't shield their camera lenses, and night vision LEDs also risk their chances of being discovered by tools that use light to expose these sensors. 28% of these devices employ reflective, or tinted shields which protect the device's sensors from being revealed by these tools.

About Entropic

Entropic is an innovator in cyberprivacy and decentralization. Our mission is to deliver ground breaking ways to empower individuals to protect their privacy.

More information https://www.scentropic.io/

Learn More

About Those Objects That Watch

Contacts

Entropic, LLC
E-mail: [email protected]
Twitter: @scentropic

SOURCE Entropic