GENEVA (AP) – Swiss authorities on Monday confirmed a police raid on the home of a Swiss software engineer who took credit for helping a US security camera company break into the online networks, part of what the activist hacker did cited as an effort to raise awareness of the dangers of mass surveillance.
The Federal Office of Justice said the regional police in central Lucerne, acting on a request for legal assistance from the US authorities, conducted a search of the home on Friday, involving hacker Tillie Kottmann.
The hacker said online that the electronic devices were confiscated during the raid. The Swiss office declined to specify the location or comment further, postponing all questions to the “relevant US authority”.
The FBI said in a statement on Friday that it was “aware of the law enforcement work in Switzerland,” but did not comment.
Kottmann identified himself as a member of a group of “hacktivists” who say they were able to see live camera streams and look into hospitals, schools, factories, prisons and corporate offices for much of Monday and Tuesday last week, after have access to systems. starting the California Verkada. They said the action was aimed at raising awareness of mass surveillance.
Verkada subsequently blocked them by disabling all internal administrator accounts that hackers had accessed using valid credentials found online. The company alerted law enforcement and its customers.
Kottmann, who uses their pronouns, told them last week on the social networking site Mastodon that the raid was not specific about the Verkada hack, but was linked to a previous FBI investigation. Kottmann previously drew attention to the leakage of broken materials to expose security flaws, including from US chip maker Intel last year.
It is common for cybersecurity researchers to research online systems for security flaws, although “hacktivists” often go a step further by publicly exposing security risks or leaking materials to effect social change.
Kottmann did not immediately return requests for comment.
Verkada, based in San Mateo, California, has launched its cloud-based surveillance service as part of the next generation of workplace security. Its software detects when people are viewing the camera, and a “Person History” feature allows customers to recognize and track individual faces and other attributes, such as clothing color and likely gender. Not all customers use the facial recognition feature.
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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.