The alleged security risks associated with Chinese made cameras has recently been a hot topic of discussion within government and media circles, which has resulted in a reduced confidence in the use of the technology. QRO and their clients have seen first hand the outstanding performance and value for money of this technology, which has resulted in limited budgets being stretched further to help provide more comprehensive coverage, to help protect the public from crime.
As many of our customers are aware, QRO supply a NASBOX which is the communications hub of their ANPR system and in essence, any camera, including Chinese cameras, could be connected to it for the purpose of delivering ANPR data to a client. For this reason, it was important to conduct penetration testing on the NASBOX to determine whether a ‘malicious actor’ that gets network access to a NASBOX camera Ethernet port is then able to leverage access to the wider internet via the back-end LTE connection. QRO employed Claranet, a CREST approved penetration testing company to assess the vulnerabilities that could be exposed. The report is available on request, but the overall conclusion was that there were no High or Medium risks identified that would allow a camera that was connected to the NASBOX to have its services leveraged, to allow access to the clients LTE connection or WAN port.
The conclusion to this report is that a camera, independent of country of manufacture, that is connected to the QRO NASBOX presents an extremely low risk of any data or network security breaches.
QRO hope that these tests and conclusions go some way to alleviate any concerns customers may have of using Chinese or other country manufactured cameras when combined with the QRO NASBOX.
The report is available for download on request.