Sunday, January 31, 2021

Protect Your OSINT

One of my regular podcast listens is Security Weekly News. The regular host is Doug White. He is an interesting fellow.

Back on topic ...

In Episode #93, Doug shared some thoughts on the breech of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He didn't delve into the politics but rather covered the IT security risks.

His advice was "If you're physically compromised, you're screwed."

Then he asked "What happens when you get a physical breech of your offices?"

In normal times, you'd probably say that this wasn't very likely. And that your facility isn't the Capitol.

But, think about it. Have you reviewed your physical security of a pandemic non-workplace?

There aren't employees walking around who would notice intruders. Once an intruder gets by the security at the door, they would probably have free access to all the workplaces.

And that's where they would find OSINT.


Go into the office. Walk around looking for yellow stickies. Pick up the keyboards and look under them. Look in the drawers.


Oh, keep a list of what you find so you can educate those employees.

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Wyze Cam v3

I'm a big fan of everything Wyze. I've made several posts about their cameras.

I've had several Wyze Cam v2 cameras and made use of these outdoor mounts.

Then Wyze released their v3 camera.

The v3 cam has the following new features:

  • 1080p Color Night Viewing - See more clearly at night in full color
  • Indoor/Outdoor - Capture moments indoors and outdoors with IP65 weather resistance
  • Fully Upgraded - More processing power, more mounting options, more frames per second

I was most interested in the color night viewing.
Starlight CMOS Sensor helps you to see in ultra low-light conditions.

Wyze Cam v3 is capable of seeing in color at night with very limited lighting. You can even use it to watch the stars or take a time lapse of the stars.
I replaced the v2 cam overlooking my driveway with the v3 cam. Incidentally, directly above the camera is a pair of floodlights.

Here is the view with the legacy Night Vision on and the floodlights on.


Then I turned Night Vision off and left the flood lights on.


Then with Night Vision off and the flood lights off.


One of the additional mounting options referenced are a 1/4" screw in the bottom. Fortunately, the cases I have been using have a 1/4" screw. So all I had to do was to unscrew the case from the mount and screw the v3 cam into it. Done.

If you don't have those cases, you can get the screw mount here.

The v3 cam uses the same microUSB power plug as the v2 cam. I had to reformat the microSD card.

For $20 each, I may upgrade all my v2 cams.