Ukraine massively uses Chinese surveillance cameras that transmit information to its servers
26 January 2024 10:25
Chinese surveillance cameras are the most widespread in Ukraine, and they all send encrypted information to servers controlled by Chinese companies. This is stated in the investigation of“Schemes”, reports 
Chinese cameras Hikvision and Dahua are world leaders in the production of video surveillance cameras. Accordingly, they are also popular in Ukraine because of their affordability. Hundreds of thousands of such cameras have been installed in our country, the publication claims.
An IT specialist, at the request of journalists, monitored what was happening with the information from the cameras on the network. As it turned out, all of them, when connected to the Internet, immediately contact their servers, which are located mainly in Europe or the United States, but to which Chinese companies have access. In addition, some of the encrypted information is sent directly to the Chinanet server in China. the “other side” undoubtedly knows how to decrypt this information.
Older cameras from Chinese companies are also much easier to hack. It took a specialist 15 minutes to access the video from such a camera.
It is known that China actively cooperates with Russia, including supplying it with dual-use goods, electronics, etc. China also does not hide its cooperation with Russia in the military sphere. Therefore, the likelihood that China may share information obtained from its cameras in Ukraine with its Russian partners is quite high.
An illustration of this situation is the Russian missile attack on Ukrainian cities on 2 January 2024. At the time, the SBU reported that it had discovered cameras installed on buildings that filmed and broadcast the operation of Ukrainian air defence systems. The service claimed that these cameras had been hacked by Russian hackers. It can be assumed that cooperation between the Russians and the Chinese also takes place at the level of hackers in the intelligence services, who can share little secrets of their devices with each other.
In any case, according to the SBU, during the full-scale Russian invasion, they blocked more than 10,000 cameras that could have been used by Russian intelligence services.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs claims that perhaps the only safeguard for such systems is their use in a local secure network without access to the Internet, such as Safe City. Three quarters of the cameras in this network are Chinese.
