GENEVA (AP) – Swiss authorities on Monday confirmed a police raid on the home of a Swiss software engineer who took the credit of helping to break into the online networks of a US security camera company, part of what the activist said. hacker cited as an attempt to raise the issue. awareness of the dangers of mass surveillance.
The federal office of justice said that regional police in central Lucerne, acting on a request for legal assistance from US authorities, carried out a search involving hacker Tillie Kottmann on Friday.
The hacker said online that electronic devices were seized during the raid. The Swiss office declined to further specify the location or comment and deferred all inquiries to “the relevant US authority.”
The FBI said in a statement Friday that it was “aware of law enforcement activities in Switzerland,” but had no further comment.
Kottmann had identified himself as a member of a group of ‘hacktivists’ who said they could watch live camera feeds last week and peer into hospitals, schools, factories, prisons and corporate offices after gaining access to the systems. from the startup Verkada in California. They said the move was to raise awareness about mass surveillance.
Verkada later ruled them out by disabling any internal administrator accounts that the hackers had accessed with valid credentials found online. The company alerted the police and its customers.
Kottmann, who uses s / he pronouns, said on social media site Mastodon last week that the raid was not specifically about the Verkada hack, but was related to an earlier FBI investigation. Kottmann previously drew attention to the leakage of hacked material to reveal security flaws, including from the American chipmaker Intel last year.
It is common for professional cybersecurity researchers to scrutinize online systems for security flaws, although “hacktivists” often go a step further by publicly exposing security threats or leaked materials to drive social change.
Kottmann did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Based in San Mateo, California, Verkada has pitched its cloud-based surveillance service as part of the next generation of workplace security. The software detects when people are in view of 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.
O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.