Second-hand Nest devices could be spying on you

Stock photo of nest cam sitting on a table

Previous owners of Nest cams could exist spying on new owners of the devices through third-party software, as reported by Wirecutter.

The trouble seems to apply to devices that were previously connected to a Wink smart-home hub by the original purchaser.

A sometime owner of a Nest Cam Indoor discovered the flaw when he found out that he was still able to see images from the device through his Wink account, but that the images he was seeing weren't of his own property.

He realized that he was tapping into the feed of the person who bought the device from him, through his Wink account.

The connection still continued fifty-fifty when he reset his Flash account.

Employees at Wirecutter tested out the flaw and discovered information technology to be truthful. They were able to see images from the device through the previously linked Wink account. They saw a serial of images that were taken every 2d, as opposed to a video stream.

There is no way for owners of used Nest cams to know if the previous owners linked the device to their Flash account.

Wirecutter suggests that you probably shouldn't buy a used Nest device correct at present, and should unplug any second-hand ones that you currently have.

Presently after, a Google spokesperson said: "We were recently made enlightened of an issue affecting some Nest cameras connected to third-political party partner services via Works with Nest. We've since rolled out a gear up for this upshot that will update automatically, and then if y'all own a Nest photographic camera, in that location'due south no need to have any action."

Source: Wirecutter

Update 20/06/xix: The commodity was updated with a comment from a Google spokesperson.