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Russia has been spying on NATO military bases through civilian cameras connected to the internet, Dutch intelligence services announced on July 10. .
A joint investigation by the AIVD domestic security and MIVD military intelligence agencies found that Russian state hackers accessed the devices to monitor the transfer of military equipment to Ukraine.
The operation targeted cameras pointing towards military transport routes in the hope of identifying what weapons were being sent to Kyiv, according to the investigation.
AIVD and MIVD added that the operation had targeted “European Nato member states, including the Netherlands, and Ukraine”.
The investigation didn’t specify exactly which camera models were compromised, but noted that IP cameras — including popular smart doorbell systems — have become widespread thanks to inexpensive Chinese imports and fast broadband access.
Many of these devices were found to be poorly secured, often running on default passwords, outdated firmware, and factory settings, which made them simple targets once identified through freely available scanning tools.
“Organisations with IP [internet protocol] cameras on these routes have now been warned so that they could take action,” the agencies warned after exposing what they described as a “large-scale Russian operation”.
Hijacking ordinary surveillance cameras has become a common intelligence tactic in modern conflicts. Almost any camera mounted on a street, home, or business can potentially be turned into a surveillance asset.
Hamas is believed to have hacked Israeli border cameras before its October 2023 attack, allowing its fighters to study army patrol patterns in the hours beforehand. Cybersecurity researchers at Check Point later identified an Iran-linked hacking group probing vulnerable cameras across Bahrain, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, and the United Kingdom, exploiting long-known flaws in cheap, mass-produced camera brands that owners had never patched.
Israel’s own cybersecurity officials separately said Iranian hackers had compromised a street camera near a scientific research site shortly before a missile struck the area, illustrating how easily such devices can be repurposed to help direct an attack.
Most notably, Israeli and American intelligence services reportedly breached Tehran’s traffic and security camera network to track former supreme leader Ali Khamenei ahead of the strikes that killed him on the first day of the Iran war.
This method has become cheaper and easier than deploying drones or satellites, while also preserving the element of surprise — most camera owners have no idea their devices have been compromised. Ground-level cameras also offer a vantage point that aerial surveillance simply can’t replicate.
With this practice being so widespread, it is unclear how Dutch intelligence pinned the camera hacks on hackers from Russia, or how it determined they were linked to the state.
Now, however, the results of the investigation are making the rounds in Western mainstream media, most likely to spread panic over “Russian hackers”.
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