The Los Angeles Police Department has warned residents to be wary of thieves using technology to break into homes undetected. High-tech burglars have apparently knocked out their victims’ wireless cameras and alarms in the Los Angeles Wilshire-area neighborhoods before getting away with swag bags full of valuables. An LAPD social media post highlights the Wi-Fi jammer-supported burglaries and provides a helpful checklist of precautions residents can take.
Criminals can easily find the hardware for Wi-Fi jamming online. It can also be cheap, with prices starting from $40. However, jammers are illegal to use in the U.S.
We have previously reported on Wi-Fi jammer-assisted burglaries in Edina, Minnesota. Criminals deployed Wi-Fi jammer(s) to ensure homeowners weren’t alerted of intrusions and that incriminating video evidence wasn’t available to investigators.
Don’t use wireless for security, PoE or CCTV
Those aren’t always options for renters, hence why wifi security systems are so popular.
Even beyond renting, installing a wifi camera is SO much cheaper than running Ethernet all over your house. And if you need it run through an external wall? Even more money.
Not if you DIY. I just finished a project, not only wiring all rooms for Ethernet, but PoE for 10 exterior cameras.
You can get 500ft Cat 5e boxes off eBay for like ~$20, an extra long 1/2 inch drill bit (for punching through the exterior wall) was like another 20. Most expensive part was probably the metal conduit for the outside runs (I decided to only have 2 or 3 holes to the outside and run the cables in the conduit along the soffit to converge to one of 3 exterior holes for final routing within the house. That was probably 150-250)
All in all after estimating for secondary costs, like screws, brackets, sealant, a caulk gun, ceiling bracket for ceiling routing indoors etc this project was probably <400, pretty cheap as far as home improvement projects go
You can save on all that conduit with direct burial Ethernet.
Do you really need either when you’re running the cable down the soffit where it’ll never really get exposed to sun or rain?
No - I use some standard stuff in areas like that, when I’m able to come right out and under the soffit or siding. If I have to make a run, closer to the ground, with a brick facade, I’ll use it. I won’t go crazy actually trying to burry it when it stays near my house hidden by shrubs.
I have buried it for customers that require connections located in dislocated structures - trenches and filling by others though. 😅
Good because I didn’t use either and also tucked mine up in the soffit albeit with some short runs before they go into the attic. It is not something I’d like to revisit 😆
Not that expensive to do it yourself. Getting a fish tape and a cheaper Ethernet termination kit would set you back at most $50. Only other tools you need is a drill and most homeowners should already have that. And a really long bit is cheap at harbour freight.
Yup, cost isn’t the issue, time and patience are. In order to run cables down my walls, I’d need to wade through 2-3 feet of insulation fluff in my attic while stepping only on roof cross-beams, all with only like 7 feet of space at the center (way less at the edges). The cable and tools will only cost $100-200, but the whole process is a giant pain to actually do.
Even beyond renting, installing a wifi camera is SO much cheaper than running Ethernet all over your house. And if you need it run through an external wall? Even more money.
A bit of plastic trunking, an ethernet cable, and a long masonry bit for your hammer drill to get through the brick wall, oh and a little sealant, not that expensive, I believe in you!
I’m gonna fall through the ceiling :(
That’s not cute, it’s tragic
Lawful- Neutral renter reporting in:
- Fresh paint and a lot of putty hide a lot of sins
- Magic erasers ARE magic
- Home improvement stores just like sell door trim, hardware, etc and they’ll color match paint
- Most post-inspectors are looking for egregious issues or evidence of a bad fix/cleanup. That’s now your threshold for quality
I fixed an entire doorframe trim and drywall after the back door got kicked in - paint and putty are your friends
Renters have virtually no choice here. I hate it when people state this like it’s some damn easy thing for everyone to do.
The real answer is caching. Instead of writing video to the cloud live and losing all recordings during a wifi outage, it should just cash the last 30ish minutes in case of failure to connect to the cloud. Then once the connection is up again, it just uploads the cached video.
My cameras are PoE going to an NVR but you can also slap SD cards in them to record locally. I’m sure there are some wireless options out there with this feature included. Unfortunately wireless cameras have another glaring flaw in that they only record on movement and I’ve heard of so many stories where they didn’t catch any movement to start recording when something happened.
I have a few cheap cameras that can handle both WiFi and ethernet, they support an SD card, and they do continuous recording regardless of connection type.
There are some that have local storage in case wifi drops out.
I beg to differ not with that attitude. In most situations you can non permanently get a camera out a window or door without harming anything / risking deposit loss. Only where you have no windows near exit points and a windowless door. But even then you can still atleast have something internal to catch a break in (wired streaming to web).
Easy or not, wireless isn’t secure.
Neither is PoE when the thieves drop a bit of foil onto the local transformer with a drone.
I’m not saying this is what the backup batteries on my modem and in my rack are specifically for, but it would definitely prevent downtime from a Droney McTinFoil von Transformer scenario
Droney McTinFoil von Transformer Optimus prime’s HS nickname
That’s a hell of a lot higher bar to cross than wifi.
Wireless “security” cameras are never a good practice.
There’s no OSFA solution. Yeah, it sucks if you’re renting and can’t run cat 6 everywhere. All the same, you can still run a hard wired cam to a NVR/NAS in at least one location inside, but then you face the same difficulty anyone else does of securing the storage from theft - or you can have it upload to a cloud as quickly as is practical so you get off-site storage images and alerts of the theft.
There’s a lot of opportunistic thefts near where I live. Honestly, the odds of actually catching a good image of the thieves’ faces are petty low. If they know enough to jam the wifi, they also probably know enough to hide their faces. The thieves in our area all wear hoodies and hide their faces somehow, so all you get is the alert that someone is there and an image of a hoodied individual.
Honestly, if I’m renting, I’ll just get renter’s insurance and not bother with doing any security.
As a homeowner, I’m going to do everything I can to avoid making a home insurance claim. As a renter, whatever, not my problem, the insurance can maybe sue the landlord for not securing things properly because it’s their job, not mine, to keep things secure.
The landlord might have an incentive to protect their investment
Burglars stealing whole apartments over here.
Can’t have shit in Detroit.
Honestly super easy. I have a pet cam that records locally to an SD card and is accessible via wifi. A jammer wouldn’t stop the recording. Also like 30 bucks vs 50-100-200 bucks depending on which ring cam you get. Certainly not weatherized but good enough for internal monitoring.
Honestly super easy.
Would you go so far as to say it’s barely an inconvenience?
Wow wow wow. Wow.
Yes, if you have a $10M villa in LA where you store your priceless art collection invest in hard security. For the average person who just needs video for the insurance company for when some meth head steals their bike from the garage, it’s a great solution.
Honestly, deadbolts and keeping the garage closed would get that meth head to go to the next house.
If you send a claim to the insurance company for a stolen bike or something, you’re going to pay way more in house insurance than whatever the bike cost. The only time you should be making an insurance claim is for a massive loss, like a fire, flood, etc. The video evidence should instead go to the police so they can track the perp down and maybe recover your stuff.
IMHO, it comes down to your risk, what will make you feel comfortable, and how much money you want to spend. Pulling Ethernet through the walls and patching drywall might not be something you care to do if risk is low.
Also, if someone really wants to not be on camera, they’ll wear a mask, turn the power off at the main panel, etc. That said, there are cameras that can run on battery and store footage locally when they can’t phone home to wherever they deposit video files.
My entire 12 camera system is ethernet only which feeds into my server closet and backed up with a battery that can run it for 5 hours. The video clips are sent to telegram for backup.
Uh, how do you use telegram for backup?
You can create and set up telegram bots for your own use
Right, but they offer basically unlimited storage or how does that specific bit work? I wasn’t aware you could put meaningful amounts of data anywhere using a telegram bot.
And why not just… get cloud storage? Backblaze is something like $6/month for 1TB of data, which is more than enough space for an interesting amount of off-site video backup.
I guess my point is that there is no right or wrong camera system. It’s a balance between risk, convenience, and peace of mind / perceived safety.
I used design hardcore security checkpoint systems for the DHS, and even I have stupid WiFi cameras. I’m going to see diminishing returns if I go with a more old-school hardwired system. The people who do break in sprees in my area have been getting past me those things for decades.
Ok, so they will disable your power 5 hours before they rob you I guess.
Most people these days have either a ring doorbell camera or nothing. A very few people have real security cameras hardwired, and even fewer of those have more than 1 camera.
Also, about 1/4 of the ring doorbell cams need their batteries replaced.
PoE/CCTV is def the better option, but youre gonna be hard pressed to get regular folks to make the switch unless this type of burglary becomes endemic.
Yep. We have a mix of wifi/hard wired PoE. If you can handle crawling around in the attic or wherever, PoE is the easiest and best option. No need to run wiring to any sort of electrical box to power 110v for cams. Wireless is super-easy, but usually you have to pay for cloud services on top of that. Home hard wired with an NVR or NAS is the way to go.
Wireless is super-easy,
Oh, having to pay for cloud services is TIGHT!
You’re confusing easy with cheap.
Actually it’s pronounced “Ryan George”.
Right?? I don’t understand this attack. People are lazy and far too trusting to have their home feeds uploaded over the internet
Cheap wireless cloud connected security cameras are the reason home surveillance is so ubiquitous today. Many people don’t have the know-how to install POE cameras, or it’d cost them too much to pay someone to do it. Plus, if you’re renting your house, putting the holes you’d need where they’re supposed to go is something you might not even be allowed to do.
I fully understand the attack. It’s effective against the majority of people.
It’s one of the easier things to DIY though, much easier than setting up a printer or installing a TV. Also, it’s about the same price if not cheaper, I got 1tb harddrive, 4 cameras, cables and and OS for under $200
I’m just tired of these excuses on why we give away our data and then are surprised when their security is trash
It’s one of the easier things to DIY though, much easier than setting up a printer or installing a TV
I don’t think that’s true at all, and also like I said before if you rent it’s literally not an option unless you can do it without drilling holes.
Also, it’s about the same price if not cheaper, I got 1tb harddrive, 4 cameras, cables and and OS for under $200
Well no, a Wyze cam is like $25. So that’s not “The same price if not cheaper”, it’s twice the cost.
$25 + subscription and/or SD card
You don’t need either, actually.
I’m not familiar with Wyze but Ring and Nest doorbells go for $50-$200 per camera plus a month subscription if they want to keep the data, so still cheaper
And they do have magnets to allow for non drilling options if that’s a requirement. I should also stipulate if the person installing it has the physical ability, the setting up the computer side is easy enough for a novice and simpler than installing Windows/MacOSX
My argument is not go the easy, convenient route. Fast food is nice in a pinch, but eating it every day leads to bad outcomes. And I’m not saying the consumer is 100% to blame, but they aren’t innocent bystanders, especially if they are spending money to protect valuables, why not learn which tools are available and when to use what
While still hating this living dystopia, I do appreciate some of cyberpunk headlines we get.
POE is where it’s @
Yes, he kicked down the Point Of Entry. Also, Power Over Ethernet is the best. It is known.
And here I thought someone was just saying they like path of exile.
Listen, it’s a series of short horrific stories and you need to sit down to read about these absurdities that Edgar Allen Poe has to relate.
Honestly though, I really do need to read more of his stuff. I’ve only read a few, but they’re incredibly good.
I was thinking Pillars of Eternity. PoE is always on-topic. :)
It’s even easier to cut the Internet cables going into a house.
If I had a PoE surveillance system I’d have it saving to a local server.
I got great pictures of the people breaking into my van. It did nothing to help catch them.
Well, if you got a license plate, maybe the police would pretend like they care.
A license plate for what?
The license plate of the thieves who stole from the van. Just one thief is probably a drug addict, more than one is a crew that likely has a getaway car nearby.
Thieves who use cars during thefts usually use stolen cars. Yeah, I was able to get a license plate of a car that dropped them off once, it didn’t seem to do much since it hasn’t stopped them from returning.
Well, it’ll hopefully help them connect crimes and nab those thieves eventually. It certainly doesn’t hurt.
Never lived somewhere with buried infrastructure huh?
This but unironically. Burying lines costs money and who is going to spend it?
Uh, no it doesn’t? Just use a shovel, wedge open the dirt like 6-12 inches, and Bob’s your uncle. I recommend also putting in conduit so you can fish another line if you ever need to.
Just use a shovel
On asphalt and concrete?
Are you talking about utility work? If so, that’s on your ISP.
Our infra is all underground until it reaches my house, so there’s a few feet of exposed cable in the corner of the backyard behind a fence where it enters my house. I’m not exactly sure what the arrangement is, but I think they coordinate with the electric or water utilities if they need to service one of their boxes.
I would reply, but you clearly are more interested in making your own answers for yourself.
At least with my setup, I get a notification from Unifi basically immediately if my internet/power goes down. With all my POE being run through my walls and attic as well, I don’t really have to worry about individual cables being cut.
At some point when I have enough money to consistently eat dinner again, I would like to get a secondary wan through a satellite internet provider specifically for when my main internet goes down.
That’s one of the reason I went with a PoE camera. Just make sure your network is isolated so people can’t connect to your internal network from the camera Ethernet cable.
Or vice versa, connect to your cameras from the rest of your network.
It doesn’t hurt to hide or disguise the cameras to make them difficult to spot. That way, burglars wouldn’t even try to find and break their server if they’re not noticed.
Nah, cameras should be very visible so burglars see them and just go to the next house.
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If only there was a solution, I don’t know, a cable resistent to jamming the ether, something we could call ether-jamming-resistant-network, in short Ethernet
I know… I am just dreaming :-P
It’s easy to write snarky comments like this, but the truth is running cables isn’t easy, and in some cases simply not possible, at least if you don’t want the cable simply draped over the outside of the house.
Alternative is like… a single gigabyte of local storage on these things
That could just as easily be stolen
It depends how easy to reach the camera is, I can’t see a thief sticking around long enough to set up a ladder to grab the camera, for example.
If they’re setting up a WiFi jammer, a ladder wouldn’t be an absurd thought.
They’d have the jammer already set up, either in a vehicle or on their person. A ladder is much more conspicuous.
As a side business I consult and install security systems in small businesses and homes.
Literally none of them want the cable option, no matter how hard I push it.
The cost of running the cable and the time needed always is the dealbreaker.
Doesn’t matter if its insecure, they just want it to work now and be cheap.
It’s bizarre.
In my last apartment, I literally had to fight to get a DHCP/ethernet + EDGE (yes, really) connection installed.
They kept asking me why I want two 😅
wdym DHCP?
And what’s an “EDGE” supposed to be? I only know that term as the old mobile standard. I believe it was 1G or 2G?DHCP as in it’s an ethernet connection to a residential router that provides the device with connectivity details.
Normally this isn’t considered as secure as a bad actor can cut the power or connecting cables (e.g. If you’re using dsl) to kick your system offline.
And, yeah, my old security system absolutely had an old 2G/EDGE modem to connect and send basic signals (as a fallback, in case of the above power cutting scenario). Was great.
Sorry but I still dont quite get it. Your apartment gave you basically a network inside their residential sorta ISP?
At least in Germany, you are responsible for your own internet provider access and (at least to my knowledge) don’t need to jump through hoops to get something else because the house doesnt do it and it’s your problem.
So if you want a main connection with a WAN-fallback, you just buy a router (or modem router combo) that can do it.
Only exception might be something like coax-based internet but that’s a problem with the provider.
I wish that apps notified you when your camera has been unreachable for too long, but at least that’s a hint that a jammer may have been involved. Cameras won’t stop them, but a the best setups would rely on wires and hidden local and cloud storage for recordings and alerts.
A numbers of cameras tell the user when they go offline, but yeah, a lot do not. I have a HomeKit system that sends an alert when WiFi or power has been interrupted to the camera or the primary hub.
Especially if X# of cameras are down
apps notified you when your camera has been unreachable for too long
The volume of false positives this produced would render the system significantly less useful.
before getting away with swag bags full of valuables
So just look for the guy who looks like he’s just been to four different network admin conferences?
Bill, where did you get these 37 easy buttons?
However, jammers are illegal to use in the U.S.
What is the point of adding this bit for an article about burglaries?
They should make burglaries illegal too!
Because it’s relevant? Is this not factual information that readers may or may not have known?
The availability of hardware changes by a not-negligent degree based on the legality of acquiring it.
Curious readers likely find information indicating that these shouldn’t be readily available at your local big box store to be pertinent information.
It does and it doesn’t.
Any microwave with the door rigged open is a super effective Wi-Fi jammer. Everything coalesced on 2.4GHz instead of licensing their own radio spectrum making absolute mountains of overlap. It’s harder jam nearly everything else. ( Not much harder, software radios are super cheap, but you at least need more electronics knowledge than a screwdriver and tape. )
They’re extra illegal!!!
Because jammers are not inherently burglary tools. It provides extra information about the technology in discussion.
Ostensibly harder to obtain when they’re illegal to stock and sell retail.
Same reason why you see folks in Japan and the UK obsessed with knife crime rather than gun crime. Obtaining a gun is more difficult to do legally, so fewer people carry them.
Worked at an old job where one guy, that had access to the router settings, would disable the Blink Cameras so he could forge his time cards.
Owners ended up realizing the cameras would only be disabled when he was on shift.
I worked at Walmart ages ago and one of the overnight assistant managers would do this and then steal cash out of the cash office until he finally got caught.
That screen capture looks like the beginning of a rap video.
i know nothing; would a hardwired connection from the cameras to the router solve this?
yes, assuming the cables are inaccessible from outside. otherwise it would be easy to cut them.
If you are close enough to cut cables, they already have you on video.
Yes but the camera should be in a place that can’t be physically tampered with easily since someone could theoretically unplug the camera and plug into your home network and see all your computers or other devices as if they had stolen your WiFi password. A small risk but it’s better to hardwire it somewhere they would need a ladder to get to or get a camera system that connects to a central box inside the house.
Well, if it’s not on a WiFi network, it’ll be fine. CCTV is a great example of this. Just wire up some cameras, encrypt the harddrive and put it somewhere difficult to get to. Only way to disable all cameras at once would be an EMP. There are kits for a few hundred $ and all the data stays local
Or just flip off the main switch on your breaker if they can get to that.
Totally. Get a PSU? Or use solar with a PSU. Or batteries. Always a mitigation for the mitigation lol
Yes.
This is one of those things I thought would always remain firmly within the realm of science fiction. Watching movies and reading books growing up, movies like “The Matrix” and books like “Snow Crash” and “Neuromancer,” I’d always be fascinated with high tech burglary. The idea that one could intercept communications, jam frequencies, or anything of the like, always just seemed a bit too out of reach for modern day criminals. And yet, here we are.
A jammer is less sophisticated than a crowbar. It’s not like the burglar designs it themselves. Nor are they hacking your network to gain access, they just shut everything down.
It’s actually not that high-tech… Like jamming a wifi signal is basically like just shouting over someone to prevent them from speaking (or at least from being heard). To make one from scratch, you need a little bit of technical prowess, but it’s definitely a beginner project… But to use one, you literally just turn it on, and maybe choose a frequency. They’re widely available and cheap.
There are pretty cool sophisticated digital crimes out there though, so take heart!
I would think most wifi jamming is just deauth attacks. It is much easier to just channel hop, enumerate clients, and send them deauthentication packets.
This way you don’t need a particularly powerful radio/antenna, any laptop/hacking tool with Wi-Fi is all you need. There are scripts out there that automate the whole thing, so almost no deep knowledge of wifi protocols are required.
WPA3 has protected management frames to protect against this but most IoT cameras probably don’t support WPA3 yet.
That’s a relatively sophisticated attack though, and like you said is dependent on versions of WPA. It’s easier from a hardware perspective but more complicated software.
A 2.4 and 5ghz jammer is just simpler. Turn it on, everything fails. Even stuff that doesn’t talk Wi-Fi like Zigbee. Throw 400 and 900mhz on there too and now even residential security sistems will be frozen. It’s just simpler to use brute force for something like this.
Its like laying on your horn to stop people from hearing each other. Low tech.
Sick, where do I get those jammers?
I’m not gonna rob anyone, I just don’t want cameras working nearby me.
You do realize it stops wifi in general from working, not just the cameras
It doesn’t even stop the cameras, which would continue to record and save in their SD cards locally.
Ones that have that feature. Some popular cheaper brands (e.g. Ring) the individual cameras can’t support SD cards but the base station can but they need wifi to be able to do that.
Ring is not a cheap camera. The $20 Chinese cloud cameras sold on Amazon are extremely common and they all have MicroSD card slots as a backup option.
If I’m out in the world around unfriendly cameras I’m probably not on Wifi anyway. And yes, I know all the reasons they’re illegal, this isn’t completely serious.
Smash microwave oven window and you got a very powerful jammer
Hey it tickles
If a burglar is using a wifi-jammers then the basic consumer is not going to be able to stop said burglar. Basic consumer security products aren’t designed to do anything more than keep honest people honest. It’s much harder & more expensive to prevent a determined criminal from gaining entry and would likely require rethinking housing construction from the foundation up.
Its also to help police with investigations. POE cameras and doorbells won’t have this specific weakness, they’ll probably still get in and steal all your valuables, but if they think thier wifi jammer is working you might get some footage thats useful for the cops…
Then the burglars will just upgrade to a device that sends an EMP to disable everything. If it’s worth it.
Hope they forget to put a fadaray cage around their cells.
My go to method for stealing people’s stuff is actually a neutron bomb. It keeps the property intact and all you gotta do is wait for a few months for the big gamma emitting neutron activated materials to cool off.
Wouldn’t that destroy all the expensive electronics they’re trying to steal?
Maybe they’re after GOLD
Sorry I forget people have other types of expensive stuff too. I’m usually only worried about protecting my Lucky Charms.
But then if they do realise you’ve got POE devices I guess they could use a laser to overheat the external cameras I guess, or nock out your power if you don’t have them on a UPS…
I highly doubt they’ll go through that much effort. If they do notice you have POE devices, they’ll probably just go to your neighbor’s house. And that’s the whole point of this type of security, be just a bit more secure than the next person.
Something tells me that systems will just have a strong dummy wireless signal act as a tripwire and then it goes down, it triggers stuff…even super low end stuff could implement it.
Some systems already have that. Replaced a switch yesterday and re-arranged some things on my network board and got a HomeKit notification that some things were offline and when it came back. Knowing when something goes offline isn’t as useful as keeping things up though. With something like a hardwired camera/NVR, even if your ISP service is interrupted the cameras can still record, and you can put a UPS there to keep things going, even if the rest of the network is down.
A massive net to catch the baddies
