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Verkada

Verkada

Hans Robertson, got the idea of Verkada when fifty iPads were stolen from his company.

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Verkada offers cloud-based consumer security solutions for businesses and organizations. Filip Kaliszan, James Ren, and Benjamin Bercovitz are the three Stanford graduates who co-founded Verkada along with Hans Robertson. Hans has co-founded another company before Verkada and served as the COO of the same. Currently, Filip Kaliszan is the CEO of the company and Hans Robertson is the Executive Chairman. Verkada was founded only five years ago and within a small time, it has become the talk of the physical security industry.

About Verkada Inc

Verkada is a physical security company that builds cameras, access control systems, environmental sensors, and alarms. The company builds cloud-based software platforms to access high-end hardware security products and make buildings safer. Verkada’s headquarters are based in San Mateo, California, and have customers across the globe. Their customers increased by nineteen folds between 2017 and 2018.

It has also received many awards and recognitions including Top Startups (LinkedIn), AI 50 Most Promising AI Firms (Forbes 2020), Enterprise Tech 30, etc. In January 2021, the company also became one of the 100 Best Places to Work in the Bay Area 2021 (Built-in). Last year the company crossed the $1 billion mark valuation after its Series C funding round.

Founding Idea

As it is said that every great idea emerges problem the problem, the story of Verkada is also somewhat similar. Before Verkada was founded, Hans was busy with his company Meraki (now Cisco Meraki). One day he found that fifty iPads were stolen from his company and that the video cameras in the security system were also not working for months. He realized the need for high-end security cameras in the market integrated with cloud-based software. So, Hans along with the other three co-founders decided to build a company to solve this problem. The goal was to keep data secure yet at the same time use AI to train the cameras for taking clearer photos, especially during suspicious situations.

Verkada
Image source: prnewswire.com

Towards the Success

They started working on the product right away and launched beta testing in 2017 with two camera models. The company had to struggle very hard especially during the seed and Series A funding round because only a few could see the vision and potential behind the idea. Investors started showing interest in Verkada after it appeared in the Forbes 2019 list of Next Billion-Dollar Startups. It also became one of the top companies in the AI category (Forbes). After these two big features, the company successfully raised $40 million in Series B funding and the valuation of the company became $540 million.
In January 2020, the Series C funding round of Verkada took place (led by Felicis Ventures) in which it raised $80 million. The total funding received till Series C summed up to $139 million and the valuation of the company became $1.6 billion. Verkada became a billion-dollar company only after three years of launching its first product. Later in 2020 the company also launched its first access control device. The idea behind this new product is to integrate security cameras and lock in a single platform. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company also decided to distribute free surveillance kits to important organizations (like healthcare and medical businesses).

Recent Events

In October 2020, news about the Verkada breach broke out in the news as the whole world witnessed the compromise of its security systems. A group of tech-savvy hackers infiltrated the camera systems of Verkada everywhere from hospitals to jails. This included 150,000 cameras in active surveillance. The hackers not only broke into the live surveillance feeds but also gained access to the archives of Verkada cameras. Later the hackers claimed that they founder Verkada’s super admin password publicly available on the internet.

Filip Kaliszan – CEO of Verkada Inc

Filip Kaliszan is a Standford graduate who completed both his bachelor’s and masters in computer science. He was also a computer science research assistant at the university for several months. In 2007, he founded CourseRank Inc which came under Chegg after three years. In 2010 Filip joined Chegg as the Director of Product Management and also worked at Guidebook Inc until co-founding Verkada.

Verkada camera

Verkada camera breach caused by hackers exposing Tesla, Jail, and Hospitals.

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Another massive hacking incident shook the world as a group of hackers successfully compromised the security camera systems of Verkada Inc. Verkada Inc is a Silicon Valley startup and the company’s camera security system is used widely from companies to hospitals around the world. The hackers have said that they were able to collect a massive amount of security camera data and have also gained access to live feeds of a hundred thousand cameras. These cameras are set up inside hospitals, police departments, schools, prisons, etc.

The hackers have also exposed a few footages of companies including Tesla and Cloudflare Inc (San Francisco, Austin, London, and New York offices). But, this is not it as they also broke into the camera systems of women’s health clinics and also hacked the camera system of Verkada’s office. The cameras that were hacked also use facial recognition systems to identify people from the live footage. Since the hackers claim to have full footage of Verkada’s every customer, the intended damages cannot be fathomed if it is true.

Verkada camera details of exposed videos

Since the hackers claim to have access to full surveillance footage of Verkada’s customers, a few of them were revealed. Video footage taken by Verkada camera system inside Halifax Heath (Florida-based hospital) shows that a total of eight hospital staffers tackling and pinning a man on his bed (reported by Bloomberg). Another video that was revealed by the hackers was of Tesla warehouse in Shanghai. The video footage showed workers on an assembly line. The hackers have claimed to hack 222 cameras in total within Tesla. The organizations who were exposed in the leaked videos declined to comment immediately.

Verkada camera
Image Source: bloombergquint.com

There was another video from the surveillance footage witnessed by Bloomberg showed a police station in Massachusetts. A police officer was questioning a man in the video. The hackers also got into the camera security system of Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut. There is not a single place that was spared by the hackers, as they also accessed 330 security cameras inside Madison County Jail, Alabama. The hackers were not only able to access live footage but also archived videos (including audio in some cases) in high-resolution quality.

Who hacked into the camera system?

The hacking into the Verkada’s camera system was done by International hackers who wanted to show the world the pervasiveness and ease at which this system can be infiltrated. Tillie Kottmann is one of the hackers who has claimed the responsibility for the hacking incident. Tillie has also previously admitted the hacking into Intel and Nissan Motor. Tillie said some of the major reasons why this chain of hacking surveillance footage has been carried out by the group is mostly out of curiosity and constant fighting for the freedom of information and against intellectual property. Kottmann also mentioned that it is too much fun not to do it.

Apart from taking credit for accessing all camera footage, Kottmann also mentioned that they have found the root access on the cameras. This means that they can now execute their own codes in each and every camera. In doing so, this will further help them to hack into the broader Verkada network and use the cameras as a platform to launch similar hacks in the future. Kottmann also mentioned that “Obtaining this degree of access to the camera didn’t require any additional hacking, as it was a built-in feature.” (Bloomberg)

A group of hackers got into the network of Verkada’s camera system as they found an exposed user name and password information on the internet. The information was of an administrator account and after Bloomberg contacted Verkada regarding this, the hackers lost all video footage of both live and archive data.

The action was taken against hacking

In the light of the information regarding the camera system comprising, a Verkada spokesperson said that “We have disabled all internal administrator accounts to prevent any unauthorized access.” The company also mentioned that both the company’s internal security team as well as external security agency have started investigating this matter. They have also contacted law enforcement.

The controversial fact about this entire hacking incident is someone or the company has been careless enough that such sensitive information was lurking freely on the internet. Anyone can get into the surveillance system if they have a correct user name and password, but how easily are this information leaked is the main question. This will hurt the trust build between Verkada and its customers.