If you are looking for online security cameras with a live transmission, probably you have the answer for the question, "what is Insecam" since it's easier to find a lot of security cameras with a live stream available in this platform.
Or perhaps you still don't know what Insecam is, either way, in this article I will explain how you can watch live online security cameras around the world by just visiting a web page. And you don't need to have any hacker skill at all.
What is Insecam (short and quick answer)
Insecam is a directory of online security cameras with more than 73,000 live- streams that are available for everybody to watch. The cameras are from different parts of the world and you can just use filter to search for Manufacturers, Places, Cities, and Timezone. You just need to access a website to have access to it.
The cameras are installed in different places, such as companies, homes, offices, pools, public and private places including even people's bedroom.
Example of cameras in the Insecam Website
The pictures below show an example of security cameras located in the USA.
As you can see, there are indoor and outdoor cameras from different places and all of them are online and available 24/7 for everyone that visit the web site.
Just because somebody installed the cameras and connected them to the Internet without changing the default password, now there's no privacy anymore.
Is Insecam a free service/platform
Insecam is an open directory listing all those security cameras, which you can consider as free service since there's no fee or membership to access the website.
The only thing you need to do is to choose what camera you want to spy on, for instance, you can pick a camera that is installed in a restaurant, pool, or some other place you are interested in. There's no charge at all to see any of them.
How security cameras are hacked ?
The cameras listed on the Insecam directory were NOT even hacked.
Believe or not, people just leave the camera completely available to be "hacked" buy everyone. You are about to understand why I'm quoting "hacked" in a while...
Using the default username and password
There are a lot of different ways a hacker can get into a security camera and I explain some of them in the article, How to hack CCTV cameras where you can find secrets of such individuals to find the camera's vulnerabilities.
The easiest way to get into a security camera (and pretend you are a hacker) is simply to use the default camera's username and password, and this information is available in the camera's manual or the manufacturer documentation.
Some contractors forget to change the username/password after installing the cameras and leave them with default ones such as admin/admin or something similar and then a hacker (or even any other person) just need to try this combination to get access to the device. Pretty simple and no skills are required.
That's why there are so many "hacked" security cameras available in the Insecam.
In this blog, there's an article which lists the default username/password for most of the well-known security camera brands available in the market, just take a look at the IP camera default password list and make sure you changed yours.
Other ways to hack a security camera
Besides that fact that the Insecam website theoretically only uses the default password try and error combination method to get into a camera as stated in the FAQ section, there are ways to hack a camera you must know of.
Exploiting the security camera vulnerabilities
Using the default username and password is not the only method used to gent into a security camera, there is a lot of firmware (small software inside the camera) that are not updated and have well-know vulnerabilities exploited by hackers.
This type of vulnerability must be corrected immediately as soon as you find them, I recommend you to protect yourself by reading the articles:
Which cameras are on the Insecam website?
The website lists IP cameras from different manufacturers, even the big ones.
When choosing cameras by manufacturer, you can see well-know brands such as Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Canon, Linksys, Axis, and Bosch.
Here are other manufacturers you find in the Insecam website:
Android IPwebcam | Channelvision | Defeway |
Dlink | FDT | Foscam |
Hi3516 | Megapixel | Mobotix |
Streamer | TPlink | Vivotek |
WebcamXP |
Wificam |
Yawcam |
As you can see, there are different manufacturers in the list and all of them have cameras with default username/password that is available in the camera's manual.
Some manufacturers changed the way you can access the camera and force you to change the password in the first setup process. this is feature is available in the new camera models and help to prevent this insecurity problem.
Insecam alternative
Opentopia is a website that also displays online security cameras around the world in the same way insecam does. The difference is that you can register yourself as a member (free registration) to leave comments and bookmarks.
To sign up, you are asked for the first and last name, email and a password you can create to have access to the extra features.
It's not mandatory to sign in to see the cameras live stream.
Frequent Asked Questions
Are the cameras in the Insecam hacked?
According to the Insecam website administrador, NO, the directory only lists the cameras that are using the default username/password combination, so it's no real hacking but just credentials guessing.
How to remove my camera from the Insecam site ?
If your security camera is available at the Insecam.org directory, you just need to copy the URL that points to your camera and send an email to the website admin asking to remove it from the list. This should solve part of your problem.
Why part of the problem? Because after being removed, your camera is not publicly available on the Insecam web site anymore, but it's still connected to the Internet with the default username/password credentials.
Make sure you change those default credentials to protect your cameras.
Are USB and PC/Laptop cameras available on Insecam?
No, again according to the insecam.org admin, there's not such cameras available on the website, so you don't need to worry about this (at least for this website).
Conclusion
Insecam lists thousand of IP cameras that are publicly available on the Internet just because people are not careful enough to change the password.
If you have an IP camera connected to the Internet, make sure you are not using the default username/password and update the firmware asap.
It's also recommended to check if there's no extra user created by the contractor that installed your IP camera if there's such an extra user just remove the account.