Axis, Pay Integrators To Fix Your Critical Defect

Isn't Axis already living up to their "self proclaimed standards"? It seems like Axis has far fewer scramble-the-techs vulnerabilities and critical upgrades than the majority of their competitors. Unless we expect Axis to produce a flawless product I would say that they are earning their price as it relates to this.

Presumably if you are an Axis fan you are also following their cyber security guide (Axis Cybersecurity Hardening Guide Examined), which recommends setting IP address filters once you get beyond "demo" or "small office" deployments.

If you have properly filtered/firewalled your cameras the probability of exploit drops dramatically. Theoretically customers are only liable to an internally-executed exploit, or a compromised VMS server being used to launch an attack against the camera. Both of these are scenarios that neither Axis, or the integrator, should really be seen as liable for.

While the ideal is non-exploitable firmware always, I do not think that is a realistic expectation. Customers and integrators need to understand that devices may need to have an emergency update done on one or more occasions over the life of the install, and set pricing for handling those issues accordingly.

Now, if this was the 3rd time Axis had a vulnerability like this in a year, I might agree that they owe integrators some recourse to justify their premium.

Semi-related, incidents like this are why integrators may want to offer service/emergency service programs to their customers. Perhaps the really savvy integrators can use Axis' weakness here as a new revenue stream for themselves.

Do you want manufacturers to keep vulnerabilities secret? Because that's how you get manufacturers to keep vulnerabilities secret.

I am torn on the whole "where does the responsibility start and end" thing only because it vary between manufacturers and it is in part also the owner/maintainers responsibility to take care of the maintenance of the camera.

Other electronic devices like phones, TV's, computers and Photography cameras in order to honor warranties require you to register your products with their respective manufacturer. When you do this they also send you information regarding your products as well as recalls. After reading the AXIS website warranty information all you need is a receipt and the serial number for the camera. with the way cyber security is going this may need to change as most other manufacturers follow this same model.

Best solution is to have a secure method to register these products so the manufacturer can send you emails saying hey you need to upgrade you firmware and here is how. This puts all of the liability on the owner and not the manufacturer. This could lead to some bad relations with integrators though as it cuts them out of service calls but IMHO that will go away sooner or later anyway with the way things are progressing.

So no I dont think it is AXIS's job to chase down people and let them know that the camera is security vulnerability, But I will say if what AXIS says:

"Axis is committed to providing high quality products, trouble-free ownership and better control of total costs by offering exceptional global service covering questions and trouble-shooting concerning both the installation and use of the products"

Then they need to come up with a better way to do what they are claiming

Do Jeep owners pay for their cars to be fixed?

Should Axis pay TWICE for any integrators who have already downloaded the latest firmware, erroneously thinking this would solve their problem?

PRO TIP: When you actually are able to secure your camera, MAKE SURE TO RESET TO FACTORY DEFAULTS before upgrading the firmware. Although not mentioned by Axis, once the vulnerability is disclosed and script-kiddies probe every known Axis camera on the web, there may be nothing stopping them from making the firmware webpage non-functional except to change what is SAYS is the version.

Resetting to factory defaults, using the hard button, gives a better chance of eradicating any installed malware first. Though it should be noted that once the camera has been rooted, even the recovery partition can be corrupted, still that's unlikely to be exploited in the early days.

Can be seen as another huge plus for using HD Coax to some extent......

I am not a fan of these sensationalist articles.

All complex software has flaws, with the right research effort holes could be picked in almost any product. If it is a bug in the core of an open source product the exact same bug may appear in other brand's firmware, would you expect the same from every manufacturer?

I think that AXIS turning around a patched firmware for practically every model with a matter of days shows their commitment to holding themselves at a very high standard.

Not really sure if Axis should pay integrators to do this. I have been in the industry over 20 years and I have never seen an Integrator roll trucks to do software or firmware upgrades to products.

As far as this vulnerability we upgraded over 1600 Axis cameras in the past week. We did this with out an integrator. But we always do our own firmware upgrades.