A group of international hackers say they have gained access to Silicon Valley startup Verkada and their live feeds for over 150,000 surveillance cameras, including many at Tesla.
The breach, first reported by Bloomberg, impacts a number of companies including Tesla, Cloudfare Inc., and Equinox Gym. Also affected are a number of a hospitals, police departments, prisons, and schools.
One of the hackers taking credit for the breach is Tillie Kottman, who has previously been attributed to hacks involving Nissan and chipmaker Intel. According to Kottman the intent of the hack is not malicious, but for fun and to fight “for freedom of information and against intellectual property.”
It started by gaining access to a “Super Admin” account after finding the username and password for an administrator account online.
As it relates to Tesla, the hackers say they gained access to 222 surveillance cameras at various facilities. In one video seen by Bloomberg, workers can be seen on the production lines at Giga Shanghai.
Another image shared to Twitter shows they also had access to a camera inside a Tesla warehouse in Irvine, California.
After being notified of the breach, Verkada says they have “disabled all administrator accounts to prevent any unauthorized access.”
According to sources familiar with the matter, the company’s chief information security officer, an internal team, and an external security firm are investigating the incident.
Tesla and other companies affected by the breach have not responded to requests for comment.
